


Loser

by luckycharm



Category: Verbotene Liebe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen, M/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckycharm/pseuds/luckycharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How forbidden can love truly be, and how far can it be tested before all is broken - lost?</p><p>Very, very dark and angsty Alternate Universe for Christian and Oliver from Verbotene Liebe. There are a bunch of warnings but I do not want to give the story away, so have kept the warnings to a minimum.</p><p>Explicit content ahead. Feedback to improve myself always welcome.</p><p>WARNING: This story is Incomplete. Writer has lost all motivation to complete it, due to inspiration being killed given what the show did to the characters. Apologies, dear readers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Measure of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> "History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." James Joyce, Ulysses

 

_Dammit!_

He hated these atmospheres, it did nothing to balance his inner-peace and  _keep_  it balanced, but, once again, and with growing resentment at his own self for even  _bothering_  to show up, he forged ahead. There was no need to search around the seedy bar to find him, it was clear that it was a little to the left of sanity and beyond the crowd of roaring, drunken men, circling around a table near the back of the bar. The catcalls and jeers was another clue to the obvious, along with the swinging lone flickering light overhead, which threatened to give up any second. He envied it.

_Olli, last time, I swear, this is the_ ** _last time_** _I try and save your ass_. And then, as an afterthought,  _did he even ask for it to be saved, Superman?_  
  
He shook his head, and pushed ahead, earning quite a few fans in the process; if the compliments of gutter words were any indication. But, turning around, and seeing his size, no one dared follow up the words with actions. And then, he stopped, having finally a view of the table. And that’s where he saw him, the man-boy sitting, more like slouching, legs spread wide as if he  _needed_  all that space to  _accommodate_  - on a wooden chair, the chair swinging back, precariously close out of balance, on its two hind legs, the 'con-man' grin beneath a mask of scruffy man-hair (which only he knew really took over a month for the idiot to grow).   
  
That's also when he heard the familiar voice, somehow still always a shock to his system, the soft lilt, a stark contrast to the image... _illusion_...of the whole display in front of him.   
  
"€300.00 and you...I mean the 'loser', also pays for these here drinks, or if the bartender is sweet on ya, he might cover." The man-boy turned and winked audaciously at the bartender, earning a scowl and a growl, but, without effect, it seemed, as he continued on, "But, that's the bid on the table, I hold out, you pay up. €300.00. No sweet-talking after, it only works if ya do it before I start. So, ya in?"  
  
"Listen here, fairy boy...." The mammoth was twice the size of the man-boy, twice as ugly, and twice as old.

The man-boy made a show of sweeping his thick, ebony eyelashes towards his cheeks, two perfectly-practiced times, "For you, sir…" he paused to give the mammoth a good look-over, as if in serious consideration, "flattery will get you nowhere...so are ya in or not?"  
  
"Punk-ass fairy, your kind are like rats, getting into everything and everywhere, and welcomed nowhere. Got a big mouth on ya! €300, eh? Show ya who's a man! Ya got that kind of money, punk? Cuz if you don't, that pretty face ain't gonna stay pretty. And how'z it you're the one making the rules?"  
  
That 'con-man' grin again, unphased by the words, like water rolling off vertical  _pain_  of glass, "I make the rules, you, sir, choose the poison."  
  
And with those final words, he knew he was done for, as the crowd went wild, thumping every available surface: the game had already begun, and it was too late, yet again. He was once again another spectator to the Olli-show.  _Come one, come all! Seitingen's finest! He plays the part well, folks!_  
  
And that's when the man-boy finally saw him, "Christian, buddy! Ya made it! Grab a front-row seat, this'll be one for the books!" The man-boy’s face broke out into a grin, the sight tripping the favour for the case of a boy, rather than a man. Christian’s vision blurred - all dimples and pearly white and sparkling green.   
  
He tried to shrink beyond the masses, who had turned to follow the man-boy's voice, and all eyes landed upon him, while Christian tried desperately to tune out the murmurs from the crowd, millions of ' **fairies** ' dancing wild and red in front of his eyes. Replacing the dimples, and the pearly whites, and the sparkling green. He heard them loud and clear,  _Another one of them!_ His size made it impossible to be swallowed up by the crowd, so he did what he had always done, kept his mouth  **shut** , and watched. Watched the man-boy get pleasure out of destroying himself....

                                                                                                                                       ***

The slightly chilly night air was a welcomed change, and he breathed it in deeply, enjoying the calmness that came over him, which was short-lived by the giggles coming from his left.   
  
"Did ya see me, man? Did ya see?! He didn't stand a chance!" Apparently, walking and talking was multi-tasking for Olli at this point, because this was the 10th time he had bumped into Christian, and, dammit,  _yes_ , he  _was_  counting. Not because of that tiny spark he felt every time their bare-skinned arms touched, but, because it was bothersome. It was,  _really, it was_.   
  
Christian tried to tell his feet to take a giant step to the right, but, it failed to comply. "Ya, great, whatever, come on, I'm taking you home."

 Christian hoped that by moving towards his pick-up, he could speed up the process of getting the  _heck_  out of this place, and leaving the seedy bar as far behind as possible. The bar was just a part of the long list of things that was wrong with this podunk village, and another reason on his ever-growing list to get out.  _Get out_ while he still could, before it claimed him as another of its victims. He knew there was more out there, more than this life, this walking-around-in-circles; there  _had_  to be. There just  _had_  to be. Like  **Düsseldorf.**  One could get lost so easily in such big cities and just  _live_  - whatever, however. Maybe even become a boxing champion!

 He closed his eyes and imagined for a hopeful moment - a turn of events, and this time, he was not part of the crowd watching Olli with resignation; no, it was Olli’s face as part of the crowd, watching  _him_ , cheering him on. A fight that mattered, a fight of honour; a fight that had nothing to do with  _escape_.  
  
Of course, as most things in Christian's life tended to do, the simple task of getting to the truck wasn't all that simple, as Olli had decided that fertilizing the tree with his dinner from the night was of utmost importance, and went about his task with much gusto, accompanied by a delightful soundtrack. He finally lost the game, with Christian as his only spectator.

 Christian's head hurt, it really did, and for the millionth time, he wondered why he even bothered to come, just to be a silent witness to  _this_. Because each time he saw it, saw Olli like this, a little part inside of him turned dark. And he didn't know how much he had left over to spare to the light. 

                                                                                                                                        ***

 

The truck ambled along with much protest, streetlights shining, flickering, and then, finally fading into darkness. He looked over at his passenger. Olli was looking out the side window, his face hidden in shadows. For a moment, the bone-old comfort of their friendship set in, all 10 years of it; Olli would be turning 18 soon, no longer a man-boy, but a man. Christian was taken back to the day when he first met the skinny doe-eyed boy in the halls of their school, the look of defiance already perfected into an artform at such a tender age, challenging anyone to dare. Back then he had wondered what those green doe-eyes had seen, to put that mask on that face. Now he knew. And a tiny voice reminded him,  _but you wish you didn't._  
  
Christian cleared his throat, along with his thoughts. "You're pissing on the privilege of shot-gun status, looking out that there  _side_  window. Look forward, it's all laid out in front, man."  
  
Olli turned towards his voice, a hint of a smile, so quick that Christian wondered if he imagined it. "Is it?" Olli asked, his voice no more than a whisper.  
  
Olli had taught him the cold lesson that sadness had a physical weight, measurable, and just as concrete, unwilling to disappear.   
  
The feel of an ivory hand, landing gently on his thigh, followed by a seemingly simple request, "Take us to Big Willy, man. Don't wanna go to the house."  
  
"You don't wanna go home? It's after 2am, what will your Mama say?"  
  
"No!” Olli shook his head vehemently, his hooded brows scrunched in determination, obscuring those sparkling green eyes.  An added thought, a justification, a rationalization, “Don't want to go back to the house. If she hasn't forgotten,  _again_ , and  _accidently_  chained the door from the inside. Henriette has a tendency to do that, you know."  
  
Christian flinched, chastising himself for asking the question which he very well knew the answer to. And, so, he did as he was told, turning towards BigWillisCreek, the moon his lighthouse.

***

Sitting together on the hood of Ol'Mary (who sometimes was quite contrary), looking at the moon floating on the creek, Christian wanted a stopwatch for reality, desperately. With just a click, this could be  _it_. This moment could be all of life, with Olli by his side, his mask forgotten for but a moment.   
  
He knew he would regret it, but, he hardly ever did right by anyone, let alone Olli, and so, as was the custom between them, of asking questions that he really had no desire to hear the answer to, he forfeited breaking the pattern, and asked anyway, "Was it worth it? The €300? Was it really worth it?"  
  
As soon as he turned to Olli, and saw that the mask had been put back on, he knew he was right. It was regret that he felt, as Olli shrugged his shoulders, and the con-man grin returned, "I dunno, ask me after I spend it."

 Olli, it seemed, was done with that line of thought. He jumped off Ol'Mary’s hood, turned towards Christian and gave a pull to his shirt. Christian complied and slid off the pick-up as well. They stood facing each other.

 Christian knew it was his imagination because the moon couldn’t have truly done justice to those eyes, but, he swore he could see the apple-green jump right out of those doe-eyes.  _You are the apple of my eyes._

 Olli's voice interrupted his flights of fancy. What a pansy he was. "Hey, I didn't show you my new tat." He lifted his t-shirt over his head, and turned with his left shoulder angled towards Christian, moving in closer, so Christian could have a better look at his back.   
  
Looked like an angel rising from barbed wires.  
  
Mouth dry, Christian could only stare on silently, trying to guide his eyes to one safe spot, and make it  _stay put_ , without wandering, and there was quite a few places to wander  _to_  - like the chest with the pinkish brown nubs turned tight, as a response to the summer breeze, or the slight protrusion of the six-pack, becoming more visible with each contracted breath, or the endless flawless back that dipped so perfectly and unfairly into those jeans, or, the...  
  
In that slight whisper that Olli had seemed to perfect, for moments like these, he said, "Touch it."  
  
So, Christian did.

 Felt the slight bump of the skin, inked blood, clotted, rising to the surface, while his own blood dropped below safe surface,  _way_ down below. His breath was out of rhythm, the losing of the control starting again, chiding himself that  _the last time_ never could be a promise kept. Neither to Olli, nor to his own  _fool_  self.  
  
Olli noticed too, as he leaned in closer, tippy-toed up, and inhaled right at the junction of Christian’s collarbone and neck. The exhale of that breath, spread from that one spot, to everywhere, like forest fire, scalding every inch of Christian's body.   
  
Olli’s lips were now grazing Christian’s ear. "You wanna know my secret? Why I won?"  
  
Christian reacted as he always did, the puppet on Olli's strings, " _Ye-e-es_!" By the time that simple word left his quivering lips, he had to look down to meet Olli's eyes, way down the rabbit hole, as those green doe-eyes laughed back up at him, from Olli's kneeling position.

 He didn’t step away, didn’t resist, when he heard the sound of the zipper crashing through the silence of the moon-filled night. Big Willy even held its breath.

 Predictable Christian. So darn predictable.

"The secret," Olli sing-songed in barely a whisper, "the secret is to not let it touch your tongue." Olli's demonstration contradicted his words.... _greatly_.

 "Just open your throat real wide," There were no contradictions this time, "so the...alcohol slips right down, not a moment on your tongue."

 Christian could barely pay attention to the words. He looked out towards the water, towards the floating moon, gently rocking on the waves, and his hips fell in sync.

 The moon, a promised constant, seemed to pick up motion, floating too wildly on the water, and the illusion became too much to bear. Until, he couldn't hold it in anymore....and looked up. Toward the sky, to see the moon once again, lying still. He exhaled loudly, holding his gaze to the moon, up, up, way up, because he couldn't get the courage to look down. The rabbit hole was a trap.

 Olli was back at his side, wiping a hand across his mouth, grinning slyly. "Unless, well, unless you  _want_  it to touch your tongue, but then, you're bound...to lose."

 Christian reached for Olli, holding him close, kissing the soft, ebony head of hair, breathing in the sweat, and the vomit, and the sex; the reality of Olli's self for the night. "Isn't losing ever worth it?"

 Like the dance always played out, Olli's next step was away from Christian, loosening himself from Christian's hold, walking away towards the truck. "If you lose, then  _you_  are not worth it."


	2. View from Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Kiss me again, but don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer--but yours! How can I?"
> 
>  
> 
> Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Warmth, like being enveloped in a cocoon, with a residence for two. He desperately fought against opening his eyes until the metamorphosis was complete.

“Christian, CHRISTIAN!”

Blue met blue. One held a smirk, the other confusion.

Christian shot up to a sitting position, his heart racing, with something that urged itself to be called guilt, and looked up at his brother standing over his bed. They both inherited their mother’s blue eyes. His mama used to say that Gregor’s eyes were like the sky on a carefree summer day, full of playful hope and optimism, and just as easy to sway, from moment to moment. She’d then turn to Christian, the same dimples like his own playing on her cheeks, as she smiled at him. The smile she gave him was different than when she looked at her older son. There was sadness in that smile when she looked at Christian. It always used to worry him, make him feel shame and guilt, seeing that smile of hers, him the cause; he now knew that he should have worried more, cared more. Christian. Her baby, whose eyes were like the deep sea, and just as constant and weighty. A home as old as time. Home, bittersweet, home. So quick to darken to twilight sky with the weight of the world’s worry like second nature to his being, piling at his mind’s doorsteps. Although he was the younger of the two, there was weariness of experience, cynicism which set in. _Mother, your child is absurdly unchildish_.

Gregor looked over at the other sleeping occupant on Christian’s tiny bed. “He got locked out of his house again?”

Christian followed his brother’s gaze, and quickly pulled the blanket over Olli’s exposed, naked form. “Um…yeah.”

Gregor shook his head, raised an eyebrow, and turned to leave. “We’ve got to deliver the supplies. Old Man Joe wants us at his farm in an hour. He says there’s a lot of rounds to make, so get ready.” Just as he made it to the door’s threshold, he paused, back still to Christian, and added, “Lock your door next time. You know Papa gets up early on Saturdays.” With that, the door closed with a thud, taking Gregor’s presence with it.

He fell back unceremoniously on the bed, causing Olli to murmur in sleepy incomprehensibility at the movement, and dig his face deeper into Christian’s lone pillow. Christian looked up at the ceiling, a heavy sigh torn from his gut. “Yeah, but he’s hardly likely to step in to my room, what with the racetracks waiting for him.”

Thoughts raced faster than his mind could cope. He was well and truly awake, as if he hadn’t slept in ages. All the absurdities in his life. His mother gave up on their reality. His father escaped to his own reality. Gregor convinced himself of a new reality, every time he fell _madly, deeply in love, she has got to be the one, I can feel it this time, Christian_. The current one was called Sarah. Gregor initially had wanted to know if the fiery red curtains matched the carpet. He got more than his curiosity satiated. Now he wanted to know the colours and contours of her heart. Christian kept his reservations to himself. Sarah would be a perfect match for Gregor, their emotions so easy to bubble to the surface. Always in a constant game of emotional one-upmanship with each other. Except…that was the very thing that made Christian wary to place his bets on Gregor and his Fiery Redhead. Not that he was a betting man. One in the family was more than enough.

And, then, of course, there was Olli and his reality. _Or denial of_.

So, where did that leave Christian? What was his reality? If he was honest with the answer, he knew that he didn’t have a reality to call his very own. Beyond pipedream hopes of leaving the here-and-now, yet, doing nothing towards achieving it. Just repeating the same day, over and over, waking up to continue staring at all the versions of “realities” around him. He couldn’t afford to have a reality of his own. The others were more than enough.

Olli’s reality had started, almost 8 years ago, that fateful day, when it crashed into his own, like a train running out of tracks, heading off the cliff. Since then, even if he wanted to, desperately hoped for a do-over, Olli’s reality _was_ his own. It was because of Christian, Olli chose to do the things….

Christian’s frustrations began to build as the thoughts kept racing. Unforgivingly fast. He couldn’t make it stop. The train had a one-track mind.

_Because of Christian, Olli…_

_Because of Olli, Christian…_

Chug, chug, chug. Bang, bang, bang. Crash, Crash, Crash.

***

A thousand pins exploded behind his tightly shut eyelids. The headache was back again.

Sometimes his hate for Olli overwhelmed him, suffocated him, and those were the times he couldn’t trust himself around Olli. Dark thoughts seemed like the only balm – thoughts, plans, ways, to end the parasitic relationship once and for all. To call it a simple friendship seemed like the biggest farce. There was no choice in the matter, no will, it just _was_. They were bound. Bound, gagged and suffocating.

Drowning without a drop of water.

Christian watched his hand pull away the blanket from Olli’s body. He watched his eyes drink in the sight before him. Olli’s chest rose and fell. The tattoo on his back still echoed, _touch, touch_. The cleft of his ass teased him with its secret. Christian could only watch himself, mind caught in a silent scream of horror, as his hand landed on Olli’s hip, turning the man-boy over, so he lay sleeping on his back. The headache had now taken on epic proportions. Disgust, shame, hate, lust, battling for monopoly.

He recalled them coming home the night before, Olli throwing him a cheeky grin as he stripped down to his bare skin, innocently pointing out that, with clothes on, in such a tiny bed, he’d be bound to get _too hot, way too hot_. Christian had tried to reason with Olli, but failed, so he resolutely kept his _own_ t-shirt and shorts _on_ as he dropped cautiously on the bed beside Olli, being careful that their bodies did _not_ touch. The last sound he heard before sleep overcame him was Olli’s giggles, and the last thing he felt, was Olli’s ass pushing against his hip.

Fucking cocktease. Olli perfected the act. _He had enough practice_ , that damning voice reminded Christian.

Christian wondered if Olli knew that he teased even better in his sleep than when he was awake. It was harder to resist the tease of a sleeping Olli, because it was pure temptation. Innocently pure temptation. Artificiality artfully left out.

He knew he should stop, he _had_ to stop, but, his control, like it was wont to do when it came to Olli, was not answering his desperate plea for return. Instead, he watched this stranger within him, as he slipped one hand in his shorts, stroking along his hardening length. With the other hand, a thumb reached out, connecting with the spot under Olli’s balls, the rest of his fingers, nimble, lifting them, feeling them.

Christian watched in horror as this sick being grew more desperate with its stroking...faster...and _faster_ , it went. The dry skin of his hand rubbing against his sensitive flesh felt like a burn. A punishing burn. He sped up, to make the pain more alive. His penance for his being. He tore his eyes away from the sight of Olli splayed like an offering in front of him. His sanity rejected Olli every time. As for his insanity……. _Christian willed his eyes to shut_.

Images floated and mixed. A conglomerate of madness. His mother’s smile, filled with shame and sadness. Olli’s childlike voice, “ _Christian…I, I did it. I finally did it. He didn’t even scream_.” Olli’s naked body, so easily available, for Christian, for everyone, for… _anyone_.

Faster and faster, this sick stranger’s hand now a maddening blur. His head spinning, his headache at its pinnacle.

A guttural scream tore from his throat, surprising himself, as his eyes swung open.

Blue met green.

Olli’s smile widened, as did his spread legs.

“A better view….for inspiration.”

It was too late, too late to stop, too late to turn away, too late to deny, too late to call it a shadow of the night. Christian watched the stranger in him, as he dove between the beckoning legs, rutting against Olli’s sex, grunts from his lips like litany. And, finally, finally….everything spilled over.

He noted wryly that his headache had at least disappeared. And then, he mustered up the courage, looked down the rabbit hole, seeing Olli looking back up at him. Grinning, from ear to ear.

His shame covered Olli’s sex, his stomach, his thighs. His face heated, fell into the nook of Olli’s neck. Over and over again, Christian, the friend, moaned, “Sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry….so so sorry.”

Olli’s arms tightened around him, “I know.”

An inevitable truth of their friendship – the crux on which its foundation lay – they wiped away, covered, obscured, each other’s guilt. As was their way.

The arms were gone the next moment, the salvation always on a short loan, as Olli moved out from under Christian, heading for the bedroom door to finish cleansing the rest of Christian’s sins in the bathroom down the hall.

Opening the door, to Christian’s horror, Gregor’s shock, and Olli’s delight, Olli stood facing a speechless, wide-mouthed Gregor. Gregor’s eyes swept up and down Olli’s naked body, then back over Olli’s shoulder towards Christian, still sitting on his bed, his sex bruised and red, and hanging from the flap of his shorts.

Christian saw Gregor take in the sight of his shame, lying red against his white shorts, still lingering on Olli’s thighs, still etched on Christian’s face. Gregor’s eyes darted between Olli and Christian and finally fixed on his younger brother. Christian couldn’t look away even if he tried.

“Well, well….good morning, handsome!” Olli’s saccharine voice, directed at Gregor, seemed to finally break Gregor out of his immobile stupor.

“Um…I…Christian…work…” Gregor ran out from the scene as if Christian’s shame was infectious. Christian wondered if it was. It would certainly explain why everyone around him paid the price that they did.

It was because of him. The stranger in him, the insanity in him. The uncontrollable monster that Christian could never outrun.

It came to Christian with an undeniable clarity. It wasn’t _their_ reality that _he_ took upon himself. No, it was _his_ reality that _they_ took on the burden for. Their ravaged, savage realities were all because of _him_.


	3. Veering Off Track

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The course of true love never did run smooth." - Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Every time his shoes slapped against the concrete of the tracks, the rhythm kept his heart at a steady pace. _Thump, thump, thump_.

The ever-present thoughts quieted their maddening race, for those brief elusive moments. His mind found ease within the solace of a simple circle. Repetition. Predictability. He was like a hamster going around a flat wheel, knowing what he will encounter around the bend. To just keep on running. And, although he knew he was going around in circles, in Christian’s mind, he was running down a straight unending road. He dared not glance back.

There would be too many eyes dragging him back, back to the starting line. Making him lose even before he understood the race.

He felt a pair of eyes following him, which made his feet speed up faster. Running as if outrunning the wind, and the echoes that floated within it.

_Running to escape the spiraling fall down the rabbit hole._

The limits of his physical body finally made itself apparent, and he slowed down, coming to a halt, hands on his knees, head down, sweat hitting the concrete in gentle _splats_ , breath heavy and loud.

His brother was watching him from the bleachers. When Christian looked his way, he saw Gregor hold up his thumbs. Although his brother’s figure was too far away, he could just imagine the grin splitting his lips. Christian never let on, but his brother’s unwavering support and pride at his athletic abilities warmed his heart a bit. Just a tiny bit. Gregor, born surrounded by the same outdoors as Christian, rebelled the lifestyle. His brother felt it to be a means to an end. He was focused on the city lights. The blinding glaze of the city lights.

Christian’s focus were the same, but, unlike Gregor, it was not out of _want_. Christian didn’t mind it, the boons, this rustic lifestyle. He even found peace within such isolation. It would be perfection if his inner-peace came with it. He could live far away from watchful eyes, the woods his nearest neighbours, if only he was granted calm within his own heart and mind. However, growing up in this place, the same eyes around town watching his family, his life, his…Olli….crumbling like dried sand, made finding peace in isolation impossible. Thus, the city beckoned Christian. Not because it called him with its flashy lights and glitz like it did for Gregor and Olli, but because it called him without a name. The ill winds of this town, however, never stopped whispering his name.

There were very few things in his life that provided reprieve from such constant thoughts circling the endless track in his mind’s record. Running was one of those things, along with boxing, hiking in his woods, and the exhilaration of riding a beast such as a horse.

Hunting used to be too. For Christian, it was the purest interaction with nature. Survival. Rather than living against nature, when he hunted, he felt as if he was an undeniable part of nature.

Natural. A tiny voice of ever-present contradiction, scratched out hoarsely, “Freak!”

Christian hastened his approach towards Gregor, quieting the last thought.

He willed himself to focus again on the woods of his childhood, with his Papa and Gregor - he had a place there, a _purpose_. As a hunter, he was a cog in the wheel of the wood’s life; keeping the wood’s ecosystem beating in rhythm. The wood’s heart was pure. He liked the woods. It was back to basics, instinct the only call he had to answer to. In the woods, there was no such thing as murder, just a kill. To kill was to survive. Life and death were the only two relevant variables of survival. For that, he loved the woods.

His father used to take Gregor and him hunting. He enjoyed those times together. The boys. His father had taught him how to work a gun. The one advice that stuck, _perhaps too well_ , that nagging voice reminded him, was his Papa telling him to make the target fill his whole vision. That skill enabled him to never miss a shot.

 _Ever_.

Christian’s brow furrowed again at such treacherous thoughts that always found ways to infiltrate his desperately small number of good thoughts.

_He gave up on hunting a long time ago._

He shook his head to move the stuck needle that had settled there, creating an irritating scratch in the record of his endless thoughts – its notes wailing out _regret_. 

“Little brother, you were amazing out there!” Gregor thumped him heartily on the back.

Christian poked his brother’s muscled stomach, and grinned, “You’d do well to join me once in a while, Porky.”

Gregor laughed and stretched his torso, patting his stomach in appreciation. “Hey, I’ve yet to hear a complaint. Especially not from Sarah.” He winked and waggled his eyebrows at Christian.

Christian fought the small smile, shaking his head, and pushed his brother towards the direction of the parking lot. “So, you’re giving me a ride home.”

Gregor pushed him back, and Christian jumped to sidestep the foot Gregor shot out, in hopes to make him trip. This started an inevitable shoving war, as the pair made their way to the parking lot, and to Gregor’s pride and joy. A gray restored 1971 Mercedes-Benz 250C stood as the lone car in the parking lot. Gregor revived the old girl himself. 

“Ha! If you think you’re getting a ride in my baby, think again. This is not your Ol’Mary, you know. You’re not stinking up my baby. I got a hot date with Sarah tonight. So, Mr. Runner Mann, you can just run alongside the car.”

“Hmm…I wonder if Sarah would like to know how many others have seen the backseat of your baby?” Christian flashed a cheeky grin at his brother.

“Ass. Blackmailing your own family.” Gregor shook his head in mock-disgust.

As soon as they got in the car, Gregor blasted up the radio, rock screeching through the static, as the brothers, in reflex, simultaneously gave a few good thumps to the dashboard.

The static cleared after the third thump. The brothers turned to each other, caught each other’s eyes, and doubled over laughing. Such a sound was indeed a rare thing to be heard in Christian’s life.

***

“So, little brother, when are you going to find the love of _your_ life?”

Christian sighed at the inevitable line of questioning that always happened whenever Gregor had convinced himself that he had found _the one_. It meant starting in on his little brother, from his spot on Cloud Nine. _Denial nine_ , Christian's inner-voice chimed in.

Out loud, Christian repeated the practiced line, “Not in this town, and you know it.”

“Hmm. You know, in between looking for love, there’s nothing wrong with finding some nice tail to tie you over during the long, long, _loooong_ drought you seem to be in.”

Christian punched his brother’s shoulder, “Jerk! Thanks for the faith.”

Gregor smirked and shrugged, “Hey, I already got Sarah, so I don’t know who else could be left over…….”

Christian rolled his eyes at his brother’s blind ramblings of lust…or love. He was never quite sure with Gregor.

The companionable silence didn't last for long as it seemed Gregor had an intent on his mind. Christian slowly began to realize that his brother had cornered him into the talk, with the lure of the ride.

“So….that day…with Olli….”

“Gregor….” Christian interrupted, his voice tight with a tinge of warning.

“Hey, you’re my little brother. I have a right to look out for you, to stop you from making stupid mistakes.”

“The time for stupid mistakes started a long time ago, and you know that it didn’t begin with me. Or…Olli.”

“Does that mean you have to continue it? Christian…it’s Olli! What you guys do, that…that’s….not natural, dammit!”

Christian tried to test the limits of his patience, as he turned to face his brother square in the eyes. Blue clashed with blue. “Gregor, I’m telling you again, I really, really don’t want to talk about this.” He enunciated each word slowly so that there were no room for misunderstanding.

Gregor, it seemed, failed to hear Christian's plea masked as warning, as he continued, his eyes once again focused ahead on the road. “Look! I’ll support whatever you do, whoever you are, but, this thing….with Olli…you guys are…I mean…that’s just not right! Christian, you know that!”

“Do you think I fucking want this? That I ever wanted any of this?! Do you?!”

“Then, stop! Just stop. Leave him be. Just keep your distance. Why is that so hard?!” Gregor's fist shot out in frustration, creating another thump against the dashboard, the static returning through the radio.

Both boys looked at the radio in disdain and sighed.

A few moments of uncomfortable silence filled the space between the brothers. A pregnant pause, in seeming eternal gestation.

Christian finally gave a wry laugh, laughing at the same joke the universe seemed intent on repeating with him, “You won’t ever understand. No one can...” And with a much quieter certainty, he added, "but Olli."

With that, the moment was aborted, and Gregor reacted the only way he knew how, to the wall Christian, once again, erected between them. By blindly trying to force his way through the hardened bricks of pain.

“That's bullshit! If Olli can understand, so can I! Just...tell me! Tell me! Help me understand! I mean....it’s bad enough hearing all the fucking whispering about Mama, about Papa, and then they start in on you. Why? Because of Olli! Everyone knows, Christian. About you and Olli! Everyone! Man, he’s a really, really troubled kid. He fucking blew his own father’s head off! You can't fix that for him! You won't ever! You'll just keep drowning in _his_ misery, like you're doing now! They talk about how he roams the truck-stops on the outskirts of town. About how if you’re lonely and horny and have a fiver in your pocket, looking for an indiscriminate mouth, that Olli…”

Christian grabbed the steering wheel and sharply turned it so that the car veered off the dirt road.

Gregor screeched on the breaks, “What the hell!”

When the car pulled to a stop, Christian practically ripped the door handle from its hinge as he tumbled out of the car. His body was shaking with contained rage as he bent down to glare at Gregor through the passenger side window.

“Fuck you Gregor! Fuck you and your own bullshit! Fuck your Sarah, who, by the way, is using you until she gets bored of you! Fuck your dream of escaping this town! Reality check: You’re stuck, just like the rest of us! Only difference is that unlike you, I don’t delude myself into buying front row tickets into my own delusions. I guess you got that from Papa! Oh yeah, and unlucky me, that of course, I couldn’t inherit that ridiculous trait! So I suggest first getting your own fucking life in order, and keep the fuck out of me and mine!”

Christian’s body was vibrating, the colour red swarming his vision, as he walked blindly forward, the car rolling alongside beside him.

“Christian….come on, man, look, I’m…sorry. I was out of line. Just…just get in the car. Little brother…”

“Don’t call me that!”

Gregor looked like one of Christian’s animals during a hunt, the target that Christian had never once missed. He saw Gregor open his mouth, once, twice, and then heard as he stepped on the gas, and the car left in a blur of dirt cloud and fumes.

Like an animal removed from nature, confused and desperate when crashing head-fast into an unnatural world forced upon it, when it had lost its way, Christian slumped along the side of the road.

Roadkill.


	4. Child's Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday." Khalil Gibran, On Children

The woods were a favourite place of theirs to play. They discovered early on that the woods behind Christian’s house, where his Papa took Gregor and him hunting, had a short-cut that led directly, and easily, to Olli’s place.

Gregor didn’t frequent the woods, as he rather preferred hanging with his friends in town or at the local junkyard or the mechanics shop.

Which suited Christian just fine.

He didn’t tell anyone, but he often thought the woods to be his little secret – and he was right chuffed the day he first shared it with an eight-years old Olli. When Olli was in the woods, his green eyes got brighter, as if drawing colour and life from the leaves around them. It was a pleasing sight, Christian had thought, even back then. Perhaps because it was too rare a glimpse.

In those early days, when Christian had just started to get to know Olli, the other boy left him thoroughly confused, and often a bit frustrated. It was as if Olli’s moods were in an eternal game of hide-and-seek. Just as quickly as Olli could reach exuberance, laugh rising from the pit of his stomach, so too as quickly, did all that disappear as if hiding those moments of happiness – just in case someone came upon it, seeking to snatch it away.

But, they found each other in the woods. Or perhaps, the woods found them.

***

He could still recall that day where, without seeking, they found.

Christian had been searching for the perfect piece of wood. Thick enough to hold steady, yet thin and soft enough to carve with ease. With his knife in hand, he went along picking up suitable candidates and peeled a section of bark from each, to investigate the condition underneath. The wood had to be evenly coloured; bright, not decaying. His mother’s birthday was coming up and he wanted to carve her a wooden bird. He was hoping to make a hummingbird – they _were_ her favourite, because they seemed so full of life, but, he was realistic enough even at that age to admit to himself that his fine motor skills would only get him as far as a fat duck.

As he neared the creek, the foreign sounds made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was definitely human, and it was in _his_ woods. He had to be extra cautious, pre-cocious, as he sidled up to the creek’s edge, towards the source of that sound, being careful to stay hidden behind the trees, as he neared the trespasser.

A boy with his back turned to Christian was indiscriminately throwing any available piece of heavy wood into the creek – making awful splashes that had the birds flapping their wings as their beaks sounded the alarms. Their sound amplified on top of the heavy splashes, vibrated off the leaves, making Christian feel surrounded by claustrophobic cacophony. “STOP!”

The woods were the one place where such human disruption was forbidden, and Christian intended to make the stupid boy aware of the rules of _his_ woods. Especially as he was wasting possibly good quality wood that could very well have been Christian’s perfect find; by childishly throwing them all in the creek.

The boy turned and that was the first time those blues met those greens and held each other for longer than a passing moment.

Christian could recall the boy. His name was Oliver, Oliver Sa…something. He was new to the town, his family having arrived a year ago. Christian could only wonder what would bring people to his stale town, unless they loved the creek and the woods. He wondered if Oliver and his parents truly came for the woods.

Christian had caught glimpses of Oliver…Olli, as he liked to be called, around school, but as Christian was a year ahead than Olli, their paths hadn’t yet truly crossed.

“Why?”

Christian hadn't realized that he had been staring intently at the boy, until the boy asked him the question.

He shook his head; perhaps he was staring that hard because Christian rarely encountered others, let alone other boys around his age, so far deep in the woods. Or perhaps he was staring because the school hallways only afforded passing glances. Or perhaps because Christian hoped that this would be the way he could secure himself a best friend – everyone at school had best friends. The ones he thought he could have some things in common with were already paired off, and apparently one couldn’t have more than one best friend. Or so he was told as he got duly rejected by the other boys.

Only Sven, the fat kid who smelled like molding cheese and couldn’t control his farts, was left. Christian had tried to make a “go” with Sven, because it was the thing to do – get oneself a best buddy – and occasionally, he did get lonely, even though he had the woods. But, Sven liked trains. _A lot, a lot_. It seemed that was the _only_ thing he liked, other than cheese. Sven refused to engage in any conversation that didn’t have trains in it unless Christian offered him cheese with the change of topic. So, Christian had gladly let Sven depart his station, and kept his lunch to himself.

Christian finally replied to Olli, as he saw irritation and annoyance at being interrupted in his wood-flinging task creep into the boy’s expression. “Because…I need them.”

Olli’s irritation deepened as creases formed across his brows. “For what?”

“A duck.”

“I don’t think ducks eat wood.” He paused, as he considered the thought for possible validity, and then added, “And even if they do, one duck can’t eat _all_ that wood.” As if content with his sound counter-argument, Olli ended his words with a triumphant smirk thrown at Christian.

Christian suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, as he internally sighed away his last hope, adding Olli to the list, beside Sven. “Of course ducks don’t eat wood. I’m going to _make_ it into a duck.”

Olli raised an eyebrow at him skeptically and folded his skinny, pale arms across his thin chest. “How?”

Christian, always keen to keep words to a succinct minimum, and in a rare mood for mischief, took a few slow, deliberate steps towards Olli, brought out the knife from his back pocket and pointed it at the willowy boy’s face.

Olli’s mouth formed a perfectly-shaped, rose-coloured _O_ , as he started to slowly back away. One step, two steps, _three steps…_

“STOP!” Christian’s warning came too late.

Olli’s feet slipped in the mud, and he fell with a resounding _splat_ , half in the shallow water at the creek’s edge, half in its muddy shore.

The birds started their wing-flapping and beak-squawking anew. Christian couldn’t help it; it rose from his belly, his body shaking and laughing, right along with the leaves.

Before he knew it, he was rushing backwards to meet the ground himself, as the wispy boy rose from the mud and shoved him, _hard_ , surprising Christian with his strength. He was shaking with anger. “Don’t laugh at me!”

Christian kind of liked that the boy stood up against him. In recognition, Christian changed his demeanor to one of contrition and finally asked the boy why he had been throwing those pieces of wood, with such vehemence, into the water.

“Because I’m mad and I can’t stay mad at home! I can’t throw stuff in my house, so I throw stuff in the creek.” A resigned sigh escaped the raven-haired, green-eyed boy’s lips, “and, now it’s going to get worser when I go home like this. Fuck!”

Christian had never heard such language from someone his own age. He didn't know whether to be amused or shocked. However, the honest simplicity of the other boy’s admission followed by the apparent despair in his last words softened something inside Christian. He finally gave a good look-over at the boy and the state of his muddiness. “Hey, my mama gets mad too if I come home dirty. She hoses me down first, outside, and I have to take off all my clothes before going into the house. It’s embarrassing.”

It seemed something in Christian’s words struck Olli because he became perfectly still, holding Christian’s gaze, but seemingly looking right through him.

“I….I gotta get home. Shit. I gotta get home!” And, with that, the boy took off running, leaving Christian confused and intrigued.

***

Without really knowing why, Christian was there, at the same time, the same place, by the creek’s edge, the very next day. And, the day after. And, the day after that.

The boy returned after a week of Christian’s _not_ waiting.

He was definitely weird, of that Christian was sure. The day he returned, he pretended that he didn’t see Christian sitting on the log not ten feet away from him. He deliberately went about finding pieces of wood to throw in the creek, taking surreptitious glances every so often at Christian. The birds, without fail, loudly protested Olli's actions with their vocal dismay. Christian, on the other hand, didn’t once tell him to stop, this time.

The next day, the boy was there again.

Again, it seemed, Olli had nothing to say to Christian, as he set about with his wood-flinging. After watching Olli get in a few throws, Christian heaved the biggest piece of wood he could lift. _Right into the water._ This time the _splat_ had not only the birds protesting, but the squirrels from the trees even minded as they scurried away. 

They met at the creek’s edge every day after that, throwing wood into the water, side by side. However, a whole week of _coincidental_ meetings went by before the boy finally spoke. Christian wasn’t too sure if he was speaking to himself or to Christian.

"A piece of wood is better than a rock. Even if you thrown it away, it still floats up...kinda nice."

The nagging thoughts that had been bursting inside of Christian ever since he met the wooden boy by the creek’s edge, mud-bathed and angry, couldn’t be contained any longer.

“I’m…”

"Christian, Gregor's brother."

"Um...yeah. How did you know that?"

Olli rolled his eyes as if Christian was testing his patience with the obvious. “Gregor is only like one of the cool guys in the high school. Who _doesn’t_ know him?”

Something in that thought didn’t sit right with Christian. Yet, he forged on, with his nagging intent.

Check: best friends knew each other’s names. Olli knew Christian’s name.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Hey! Me too! But...how come you are not in the same class as me?"

"I was held back a year in my last school because I am _maladjusted_."

"Maladjusted? What does that mean?"

"No idea. The teacher probably made up that word. My mama believed her anyway."

Check: best friends had to be the same age and not be smarter than one another. Christian was glad Olli didn't know what the word _maladjusted_ meant, Christian didn't know either. And, like Olli, he didn't much care to know.

"Do you like trains?"

“My parents and I came here on a train.”

“What kind of train?”

Olli seemed unsure of how to answer that one. “Uh…I dunno, a big one?"

"Awesome!" Christian replied a little too excitedly. Olli threw him a puzzled glance which he promptly ignored for the goal of his intent.

Check: best friends had common interests. Olli had the same disinterest in trains.

Christian decided to move from his perch on his log and test sitting on the furthest edge of Olli’s log. When Olli didn’t turn into stone like he sometimes did, without reason, or run away, like the other times, Christian got the courage to ask his final question. “Do you have a best friend?”

Olli glanced at Christian, an unreadable look clouding his eyes. “Oh yeah, I had a lot of best friends at my old school. Seven, no, sixteen of them. We had a lot of fun together and they let me play with all their stuff. Whenever I wanted. I even slept over their houses. They called me all the time.”

“Oh.”

So quietly that Christian had to scoot closer to Olli to hear his whisper, Olli added, “No.”

Check: best friends were each other’s best friends.

The skittish boy was staying put, allowing Christian to share the log, and for now, that was enough. Finally allowed to be this close to Olli, Christian inhaled to his lungs' capacity, getting a good whiff of the boy. He smelled of the woods after a fresh rain.

Check: Olli didn’t smell like cheese.

Christian smiled to himself. Wooden ducks were more interesting than cheesy trains, anyway.


	5. Fantasia in G(ay) Minor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is not heard by all, but you are the music while the music lasts.” – T.S. Eliot, Dry Salvages

_When can you dance in your finest garbs? When can you sing in your most unrestrained voice? When emotions evoke. Provoke._

He watched Olli spin and spin himself in a circle, until his feet stopped, giggles and hiccups continuing, as he swayed over to Christian. He tripped on a piece of branch, and landed in Christian’s arms.

Olli, with his big, green eyes, framed by much-too-lush black lashes, owlishly blinked up at him. Surprise was etched on his face. “You caught my fall…”

Christian heaved Olli away from him until the other boy was once again steady on his drunken feet. He rolled his eyes as he looked heavenwards in exasperation. “Your head is clearly still spinning.”

“Uh-huh. It’s great!” Olli tugged at Christian's shirt. “Don’t be such a downer! Dance with me!”

“Olli, this is ridiculous. You are drunk. Again. There is no music _and_ we’re in the middle of the woods.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m ce-ce-cele-brating! Ce-le-brate, COME ON!”

Christian response was quick, clipped and crisp. “No.”

Olli puffed alcohol-tinged air out of his pouted lips, blowing it directly on Christian’s unamused face. “Killjoy.”

“Well, how about you tell me what reason you have to celebrate? Maybe then I can join you, hmm?”

Olli held his stare for a while, as if deciding on a course of action, and then moved away. And resumed dancing to whatever music he seemed to hear in his mind.

“Olli….I don’t have all day…..just tell me why you wanted us to meet in the woods. I have shit to still do today. And, it doesn’t involve watching you drunkenly dance in the woods.”

“Then leave.” With that Olli swiftly discarded his clothes, and ran head-first into the creek. He paused right at the water’s edge, and threw a grin over his shoulder, at Christian, and dove right in.

Christian was not in the mood for Olli’s games today. Especially considering that every time he thought of Olli since that awful conversation between Gregor and himself, irritation and frustration (perhaps, even _rage)_ inevitably took center-stage in his thoughts. So, he knew he had to leave. Turn around, and walk away and leave Olli to his silly games. As simple as that.

 _Stop_ waiting, turn around, and walk away.

So simple that all it would take were a few steps from his feet, and he would be gone. _So so simple._

“You’re still here.”

Christian folded his arms across his chest, feet spread wide, to gain leverage, to stop the sink into the quicksand. His eyes were just as fixed as his position - all directions pointing towards Olli. Who, from Christian’s vantage point, was bopping rhythmically in the water. The sun's light played with the water droplets adorning Olli's body. 

He watched Olli frolic in the water, making water fountains with his pouted mouth, splashes making the water dance in reverie. It was as if Olli was a water nymph; his olive skin, olive green eyes and black olive hair, a sprinkle of magic, a dash of mirth, and Oliver was born. Like Peter Pan, he never wanted to grow up. Or like Pan, the friend of the wood nymphs, he never stopped his games of trickery.

Turning tricks: Olli, the man-boy. Caught in the threshold of the past and the future, his present always a sleight of hand.

He watched, still rooted to his spot, throat suddenly parched and dry, feeling, once again, the pull of the quicksand, as Olli slowly emerged from the water.

Christian gulped. The droplets of water rained down Olli's body, patterns like a million tiny rivers, flowing, as if brought to life. Moved to action by the promise of a touch of Olli. 

One particular droplet caught Christian's gaze as it rolled from its solace in the hollow groove of Olli's collarbone. He watched Olli's adam's apple move as he gulped, the water-soaked skin at his neck stretched taut,  and off the droplet went.  A touch of a hardened nub of a nipple. A touch, and pool, in the belly-button. Grazing the thinly visible treasure trail, as it quicked its path down towards the junction. Until, finally. A moment of capture at the tip of Olli's cock. The water droplet seemed desperate to hang on, unwilling to fall.

Christian’s tongue snaked out, without his notice, as he kept his eyes fixated on that very particular droplet of water, Olli-bent on defying gravity. He knew too well how that water droplet must have felt. He shut his eyes, unable to witness the inevitable crash-landing to the ground that happened to anything that tried to hang on to a piece of Olli.

***

He felt arms wrap around his neck, wetness imprinting itself across his front torso, the smell of the woods after a fresh rain, _too close_ , tickling his nose.

He opened his eyes. “Olli….don’t…,” he spoke, barely above a whisper.

One hand languidly found the opening of his buttoned shirt, as Olli’s fingers caressed the heated skin of his chest, and finally settled over Christian’s heart. “Drums.....fast-beating drums.”

Olli’s tongue lapped gently at his lower lip, moistening it, his teeth nipped at Christian’s chin, his fingers tangling themselves in Christian’s goldilocks.

Christian put his hands on Olli’s naked hips, aiming to push him away, but, his hands, like his treacherous feet, would not fulfill the task. The music of his thoughts never did match the steps of the dance when Olli was in front of him.

He felt himself _thrust_. Press tight against the nakedness. Every touch of wetness. Leanness. Every inch of hardness. Fleshy smooth softness. The _Olliness_ \- closer to his body. He felt Olli stiffen in his arms which made him press the man-boy deeper into his own body. He wanted to use every inch of Olli’s body to get his rock-hard prick off.

_You want to play silly games? Don’t back down now._

Christian captured Olli’s moan of protest with his mouth. He felt Olli’s hands leave his head, and push against his shoulders, which made his mouth dig deeper into Olli’s. Olli was squirming against him now. Inaudible sounds were swallowed by Christian’s devouring. His long fingers spread as each hand molded itself on each of Olli’s asscheeks, squeezing harder, tighter, imprinting Olli to Christian’s body.

To swallow him whole.

To rub that body he was holding in him arms against the heat centered between his own legs. So fucking deep, he wanted to dig, so fucking hard. To get to the heat. To release the heat.

Olli was wiggling too much for Christian to concentrate. So Christian gave a resounding jerk to the hips he was firmly gripping, followed up by an echoing slap to a fleshy cheek. Commanding it to _stop_ its movement away. To stop resisting.

He needed to just… to finally…finally…

…get. to. the. _Calm_.

“Aaah!!!” The pain was sharp and unexpected. It made Christian let go of Olli as he lifted his hand to cover his mouth. “You fucker, you bit my tongue!”

Olli looked back at him with wild green eyes.

Christian crash-landed back into reality, as the gravity of the situation took inevitable hold. _Shit._

Christian felt at the precipice of a moment of monumental decision. To plea for forgiveness for something they both didn’t understand, yet understood too well. Or, to stand his ground against what he knew Olli inevitably wanted. His acquiescence.

To his surprise, Christian realized that he had backed Olli up against a tree. He didn’t remember doing that. Olli’s back was now pressed tight up against the trunk, as far a distance he could put between Christian and a trapped self. Eyes still wild like a storm.

Christian had reached his decision. To move back and away or…..

The quicksand was inevitable, so he had to stand his ground until the last sink. He stayed locked in position, his body still hard and rigid; pent-up heat unable to find release. He saw Olli’s eyelashes flutter every time his hot breath blew upon them. His breaths were coming out in ragged grunts, as were Olli’s.

He put his hands to rest on the mossy bark of the tree, behind each side of Olli’s head, framing Olli’s face. He moved closer, slowly, as he let one of his hands slide in between their pressed bodies, until he finally cupped Olli’s sex.

It was hard. Heavy, and hot.

He met Olli’s eyes, so close that he could see the speckles of gold in those apple-green eyes. He saw determination like hardened steel in the depth of those black pupils; swallowing him down its maddening rabbit hole.

Christian gave Olli’s cock a squeeze that was just a little left of gentle. Olli’s nostrils flared, and a tiny whispered hitch of a breath escaped his slightly-parted pink lips. Olli’s black rabbit-hole pupils grew larger; spreading wider open for him.

Olli was the only one he knew who didn’t ever easily back down. Not from Christian, nor from anyone, when push came to _fatherfucking, fatherkilling_ shove.

Today was the same, as Olli was determinately conscious to not blink, to not move an inch away from Christian.

Their breaths caught. Blue eyes bore into green, willing it, challenging it to…. _something_ ….stop…to call _a stop_. The green challenged back. Each waiting for the other to make their move.

Christian folded first as he looked away and stepped back from a naked, shaking Olli pressed tight against a tree; cradled in their woods.

Christian picked up Olli’s mud-stained shirt from the ground and waved it in Olli’s general direction, his eyes focused intently on nowhere but the creek before him. “Put your fucking clothes back on.”

From the corner of his eyes, he saw Olli turn from the tree, his naked form looking so vulnerable as it flashed pale against the backdrop of the brown-green rich woods. His eyes followed Olli as he slowly picked up his scattered shorts, underwear and slippers. That’s when he caught sight of Olli’s back. His ivory-pink skin had bruising red scratches marring it, the tattoo of the angel rising from barbed wires, chafed, desecrated, from being rubbed too tightly into the bark of the tree trunk.

Christian’s heart dropped to his gut as he swallowed thickly and turned again to focus intently on the green-silver water of the creek.

They were both _quite_ sober now.

***

A shared piece of log. Both sets of eyes were much too intent on the creek pooling languidly before them. Intently avoiding glances to the sides.

“You know your brother warns you against me. Why don’t you listen to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hm.” A pause. “As a friend, I must warn you against this Olli fellow in your life. He’s nothing but trouble, you know.”

Christian allowed a half-smile, not enough for his dimple to make an appearance. “You don’t say.”

“Christian. I….” Olli seemed like his hesitation was spurred by trying to formulate the perfect words. “You don’t need to say sorry to me. No apologies. Remember? There is _no need_ for my forgiveness. You’re…we’re…fuck. Just….move on.”

“Don’t fucking parrot Gregor.”

“Hey, big brothers are always right.” Olli threw a quick wink at Christian and gave his arm a fluttering squeeze.

Christian visibly shuddered. Olli had a fucking twisted sense of humour, to add to his list of mind-fucks. “Fuck off.”

“Anyway,” Olli sighed, as if he had no more will to figure out how to tackle this particular revisiting and revisionist memory. “Remember my good news? I’m doing it. I finally found an escape route.”

Christian’s eyes finally turned to meet Olli’s, shock overriding their silent truce to not face each other directly. “ _What?!_ ”

“Yeah, this friend of mine, he’s getting me set up in Köln.”

“Set up? What does that mean? What friend?”

“I dunno, I’ve been running a few errands for him already, and he says he can use me for work like that, in bigger cities. He pays pretty well, and he’ll even figure out a place for me to stay and stuff. The money I make I can save up…and….”

“Who is this friend?”

“…and once I get settled and have enough saved up…of course, I’ll call you over.”

“Olli, who is this friend?”

Olli smiled as he wistfully looked up at the trees. “Bach.”

“What?”

“His name is Bach. Like the composer.”

“That’s it? His name is just… _Bach_? What does this _Bach_ do?”

“He’s a businessman.”

Christian tried to keep his wits about him at Olli’s asinine answers to his questions, dodging the topic like only he knew how to do best.

“And, how did you meet this _Bach_?”

“Um…around.”

“Whoring around?”

“Fuck you.”

Christian flicked a piece of rock so that it drowned in the creek. He saw Olli flinch. “Oh, come on now. If you get paid for sex, Olli, by definition that’s a whore. I’m not insulting you if it is the truth, right?”

“You know what?! Yeah, I’m a whore, and yeah, that’s how I met him. But, out of all the fucks I had, and you know that’s a plenty, being the best whore in town that I am…he fucking didn’t leave. He. Didn’t. Leave. He refuses to fuck in the backseat of his car, like everyone else does! He even rents out a room for us whenever he comes to visit me.”

“Is it that place by the gas station? That rents by the hour?”

Christian saw a brief flicker of pain and moisture pool at the bottom of Olli’s eyes. He saw his Adam’s apple plunge as Olli swallowed thickly.

With quiet determination, Olli spoke on. “He _sees_ something in me. He is willing to give me a shot. And, I’m damn well going to take it to get the _hell_ out of this shithole.”

Christian’s anger was leveling out Olli’s. “Oh no! This doesn’t seem shady at all! I mean, how can it?! The dude, after all, names himself after a fat fucking, dead music composer. He _must_ be legit!”

Olli words came out strong, as if every fiber of his body was wanting to believe. “He said he’ll take care of me. _That I will never have to worry about anything ever again_!”

This was more laughable than watching Peter Pan trying to grow up. “You’re more delusional than I thought!” Christian couldn’t hold up the façade of calm any longer, as he jumped from his sitting position on the log, his glare intent on Olli, “Yeah right, he’ll take care of you! He’ll take care of you as long as you give your ass!”

Olli stood up, too, firing back glare for glare. “Christian, remember?! _I’m a whore_! That’s what whores do. At least, _this time_ , I’ll get something more than a few cheap bills thrown my way!”

“Dammit! Not everything can be bought!”

“But, everything still has a price!”

“Selling for less than the worth means _you lose!_ ”

This seemed to stop Olli on his tracks. Briefly. “I’m going by the end of this month.”

“Olli…..you know I’ve never stopped you from…..but…just…….please…don’t. Don’t do this. This is a mistake waiting to happen…this _Bach_.” Christian only had one more word left to formulate the warning that had already started burning in the pit of his gut; he had run out of everything else. “ _Please_.”

“End of this month.” Olli reiterated with determination, refusing to look at Christian’s eyes. “Just. Stop. Stop hanging on to me, just get over me, get another charity case or something….and just move on. It's sick what you do with me. What we do. Gregor is right, little brother."

Christian hated the way Olli mocked Gregor at that moment. _Hated it,_ like a palpable rage, too long building, too long burning. He grabbed the back of Olli's neck, forcing their faces within inches of each other. "Don't fucking ever call me that!!"

Olli's eyes were glassy, his look a farce of boredom; he had already removed himself from further conversation. "Just...let me go.” With that he turned his neck away, as Christian's hand fell back to his side.

Coiled into a fist. 

Christian knew Olli was trying to deliberately hurt so he ignored with all his might. “At least let me meet this Bach, okay? Just once.”

This got Olli to face Christian again. “What? Why?”

“So I know how to describe the bastard’s face when the police shows up at my door with your murder case.”

Olli rolled his eyes, shaking his head, and gave a gentle bump to Christian’s shoulder with his own. A small smile of comfort desperately trying to be suppressed on his lips. “Yes. Okay.”

Olli was too quick to hear the music, always too quick to dance. Christian knew without even meeting _this Bach_ , that he was the Pied Piper straight out of Hameln, and brought with him a painful constriction to Christian's world. He knew; Olli would follow in a trance of a dance because he always did long for the _too perfect_ song.


	6. Insatiable Curiosity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.” Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII

The day Olli had entered Christian’s woods, it was transformed. _He_ was transformed.

Christian’s papa had built a deer stand in the woods, and, in their childhood, it had doubled as if a treehouse for the boys. A house of their own, hidden amidst nature.

In the woods, the creek had tree branches hanging overhead that afforded the perfect water dives on sultry summer afternoons, when school was out. It was also the perfect place to watch the animals gather for their daily drink. The ducks would quack with abandon, catching up on the day’s gossip. The deer would hold back at the water’s edge, skittish and elegant, always on the look-out for anyone getting enamoured by their beautiful eyes and grace. The beavers were always the most peeved, the daily unwelcomed guests at _their_ creek seemingly interrupting their day’s construction. Christian often thought that they should give less of a _damn_.

They played, they fought, they reconciled, _they grew to understand_ ; all in the seclusion of the woods.

Olli taught Christian games that Christian dared not share with anyone else. Surrounded by wooden walls, high above man’s judgmental sight, they escaped to their curiosities. Finding salvation in a deer stand, made to hunt out preys.

Like the animals that convened daily in the woods, Christian and Olli met, to satiate their hunger, to satiate their thirsty curiosities, as days turned into discoveries.

The natural first cause.

Christian never knew the truth about his own dick, until Olli familiarized him with its hunger. A hunger that was awoken by Olli, and demanded to be satiated by the curious nature of Oliver Sabel’s being. His hands. His mouth. His body.

In the beginning, Christian had wondered if Olli learned these games from his friends in his old school. Olli had given a hollow laugh and shook his head. “It’s grown-up stuff.”

Maybe that was what the teacher had meant when she had called Olli _maladjusted_. Either way, Christian, nor his newly discovered tricks-of-a-dick, minded Olli’s adjustments one bit. He was sure that the other boys, pairing off with their “best buddy”, did so in such a hurry, excluding all but each other, for this very reason. The best kept secret of a friendship. Christian was relieved that it was not Sven and his cheesy, fat train that he had to blow the whistle for. Olli’s wooden duck was his good luck.

One day, Christian’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were almost going to be ten. Almost two years of building secrets in their make-believe treehouse.

He was lying with his head resting on Olli’s stomach, facing Olli’s dick. It was the first time he had agreed to return the favours that Olli seemed to so easily, and without much hesitation, bestow upon him. He touched the tip with his fingertip, flicked it, finding amusement as it bobbled back and forth, like springy Jack after he escapes from the box. He smelled it for traces of piss, and finding none, hesitantly placed a quick and chaste kiss to its head.

To stall for time, he turned his head to face Olli, and saw Olli shaking his head encouragingly. “I promise I won’t pee in your mouth. Just do what I do to you. C’mon, please!”

A questioning thought took hold of Christian by the way Olli begged, the wide-eyed anticipation in his apple-green eyes. “Where did you learn this from?”

“I can’t tell you. Now…just do it, c’mon!”

With his chubby child fingers wrapped around Olli’s dick, rubbing with pressure like Olli had taught him, Christian asked another. “Am I the first to do this to you?”

Olli pounded the wooden floors with his tiny fists, in frustration. “NO! I mean…yes. You’re the first one I wanted to….” Olli sat up, throwing Christian and his head off his stomach. He glared at Christian. “Man, it’s not fair, I have done it to you so many times, and when it’s your turn, you turn all scaredy-cat on me. I _knew_ this would happen!”

Christian could not argue with the fairness demanded in that statement, yet, his curiosity wanted to try one last time. “If you tell me who you learned this from, I’ll suck your dick.”

“Promise?”

“Stiffy honour. But, don’t lie!”

“You can’t tell anybody about this. Not even Gregor.”

“I promise I won’t.”

Olli looked him dead in the eyes, with his very own dead eyes. “My papa.”

Christian remembered recoiling at that statement, accusing Olli of lying just to get his dick sucked, and running away from the deer stand as if the woods were set on fire behind his heels.

At that age, he didn’t have the words nor the thoughts to explain why it was wrong, _but he knew it was_ \- to the core of his being. He knew that this was a secret that should have never been a secret, but, Christian was also wise enough to know that this secret could not be easily told – even without a promise to Olli.

He couldn’t imagine his own papa ever doing…his skin crawled, his fingers turned cold and shaking, willing the obtrusive imagery away. Christian made it almost to the creek’s edge before he threw up.

After, lying on the cool, wet ground by the water, looking up at the sky peeking through the leaves, Christian felt the first inklings of what could possibly be meant when they said, _maladjusted Olli._ At that moment, he had hated his curiosity for its deliverance from ignorance. Many years later, he understood the _hate_ to be more accurately the loss of innocence. And, not just his own.

Christian didn’t have foresight into the future then, as even he could not have predicted how he, _they_ , would hold on to that hate, until it festered like a puss-filled scab, to finally explode one day, in all its goriness. Leaving behind a scar that would never heal to completion.

***

In whatever way it counted, Christian lost his virginity when he was sixteen years old.

Her name was _Jessica_. She had blonde hair and tits that bounced to the rhythm of her walk, and was known for her _easy_ disposition. The other boys in school clapped his shoulder black and blue the day they found out that Jessica had turned those brown eyes on none other than the quiet loner-boy Christian Mann, two years her junior. The theory was that she was settling for the closest thing to Gregor Mann, after watching her best friend, Sarah, secure the older Mann. Or, perhaps, it was revenge. Either way, Christian finally tasted pussy for the first time - in the most unpredictable of circumstances….

In his papa’s old pick-up, which one day Christian would make his own, he had taken her for ice-cream only to end up at the end of a dirt road. His prick was stiff, his plan was limp, and so his arm landed across her shoulder. The palm of his hand grazed a plump breast, while her hard nipple read his fortune. She placed her hand over his, and pressed it to her tit, guiding him to cup it, squeeze it.

“Have you ever seen a naked woman before?”

Christian gulped and shook his head _no_ as he watched Jessica free her breasts from the confines of her barely-there tube top. A perfectly shaped arched eyebrow raised up, beckoning him to drink his fill.

He was like a blind man, unable to navigate. Unable to move. Until Jessica cupped the back of his head, and brought his mouth down towards a brown, hardened nub.

“Taste me.” So he did – _all of her_.

That night, Jessica taught him Braille with his mouth, and in the darkness, he blindly discovered the soft curves of a woman. She didn’t let him fuck her yet, much to his cock’s dismay. It was a tempting promise for a future date – at the barn party marking the end of the school year, two weeks away.

***

The alcohol, as he predicted, was freely flowing; its yeasty smell mingling with the smell of pot, hanging heavy in the air trapped within the barn’s four walls. Christian had been fetching drinks for Jessica all through the night, as she stood surrounded by a gaggle of giggling boys, all hoping for another peek at an uplifted mini-skirt as she twirled this way and that. Christian, like the rest of the boys, could clearly see that she had forgone panties for the night.  His cock was so fucking impatient. _He_ was impatient and Jessica seemed a bottomless pit when it came to alcohol. He was matching her drink for drink – his manhood intact – while his head started to spin.

Heading out, and away from the barn, far from the maddening crowd and its noise, his head finally decided to let up on its experiment with vertigo as fresh air filled his parched lungs.

“She’s hot.”

The voice in the night, all too familiar, all too hidden, had Christian’s eyes blindly searching the dark before him, for a sight of its owner. “Olli?”

“Most definitely not Jessica. You can feel my tits if you want, just to be sure.”

“No thanks.”

Olli’s laugh sliced through the darkness. “Oh, Christian, Christian. Poor straight Christian. On the hunt for his first pussy, with his guns cocked.”

Christian still couldn’t see, so he addressed the darkness. “I’m going back inside.”

With that Christian turned, only to meet curious and twinkling brown eyes. _Fuck_. Or distinct lack of. Whichever it was, Christian’s mood was officially off.

“Who are you speaking to, lover?” Jessica followed up her words, with a perfectly manicured red-painted nail scratching along Christian’s jawline.

“No one. Let’s go.” Christian grabbed her arm, moving her towards the barn and away from the maddening darkness.

Jessica snatched her arm away from his hold and walked closer towards the darkness, towards the woods. “Come out, come out, whoever you are, we promise not to bite,” her voice sing-songed. It grated on Christian’s ears like perfectly manicured red-painted nails scratching down a chalkboard.

Christian heard Jessica beside him, as she drew in a sharp breath, in unison with his, as Olli stepped out into the light. He made quite the sight. He spoke with a teasing lilt. “I can’t promise the same thing.”

Jessica’s voice dropped low. “You’re the boy who….”

“Shot my father dead in the face.” Olli sweetly smiled and extended a hand to shake. “Olli, pleased to meet you."

Christian swallowed thickly at Olli's mocking words; this was going downhill at lightening speed.

Jessica, for once, seemed at a loss for words, as she let her hand drop with a tremor, into Olli’s outstretched hand.

Christian’s mind was rattling in its too-tight cage, mentally willing the situation to disappear. Willing Olli to disappear. Willing Jessica to stop looking between him and Olli, with curious glances held in calculating eyes. Willing it all to evaporate.

Nothing good could come of this, _he knew that_.

***

 _It was not happening, it was not happening_ ….Christian kept up the mantra, eyes shut, as he pinched himself for the hundredth time. Yet, their voices were still too close and too real around him. It didn’t mix well – Olli’s and Jessica’s voices. They clashed in their tempo, in their tone, in their timbre.

He grabbed Olli by the elbow, hoisting him off the bed, where he lay beside a very naked, very spread, Jessica.

“Olli, I’m serious. Just…leave!”

“Christian, come on. My first pussy too…this will be fun. Tag-team.” Olli peeked over Christian’s shoulder, towards the morsel awaiting on the bed behind them.

“Olli, you’re gay!” Christian hissed in frustration.

“Correction, I’m horny.”

“Just this one thing…you can’t even let me have this one thing of my own.” Christian knew that a petulant whine had infiltrated the tone of his voice, but, his plans were quickly loosening at the seams, and he had no way to stitch it back together.

“Sharing is caring, my friend.” With that, Olli joined the naked, waiting, tits heaving, fingers-fucking Jessica, on the bed. And proceeded to remove his clothes as well.

FUCK.

Christian debated with the wall in front of him, for a few purposeful minutes, weighing his options – a prime one being _to leave_. He knew he shouldn’t but like Orpheus, he was fated to turn back. As his gaze fell upon the nakedness splayed before him, one too familiar, the other, not enough, he knew that his free will had vanished.

Jessica pointed a finger towards him, curling it in, as if leading Christian by an invisible thread, drawing him closer and closer and closer towards the bed.

The most prominent thing that stood out to Christian was their stark contrast. Her honey-coloured skin, golden hair, brown eyes, weighty round tits, and a glisteningly wet snatch laid bare beside ivory-pink skin, mahogany black hair, apple-green eyes, flat rippled chest, and a weighty pink-flushed hard _cock_. Christian gulped. Oh, there were most certainly contrasts. _Many, many differences_. He couldn’t quite figure out which of the two had his cock pulsating against his too-tight jeans.

They were kissing one another. Her red nails dragging raised lines across Olli’s back. Olli’s stubby, firm fingers disappearing into her heat, with knowing intent. Christian didn’t know how he got to be in the position that he did, standing over them, finally naked, stroking his cock to the feast before his eyes.

Jessica noticed him first, as she broke from her kiss with Olli, and leaned over the side of the bed, to wrap a small hand around his cock, drawing it closer to her parted lips. She swallowed him in one expert gulp. Christian let out a hiss through his teeth at the sensation.

He watched Olli watching Jessica with intense curiosity as he fucked her mouth; his speed building the longer he let his gaze linger. His fingers entangled in blonde hair – never before experiencing such ease of grip. Jessica’s other hand cupped the back of Olli’s head, guiding his face to be buried in her swollen pussy mound. A flash of her red nails against raven-black locks, insistent.

He saw Olli bent down in front of Jessica’s parted legs, his ass raised, his back scooping in a perfect arch, the slurping sounds and moans of Olli’s deeper voice congealing with Jessica’s higher-pitched ones. Olli must have been doing something right, as Jessica’s moans grew more desperate, and with his own cock around her moans, the vibrations rolling down his length, felt like rapture.

Jessica was shaking with abandon, Christian’s cock slipping from her wide-open slack mouth, her high-pitched moans turning into nail-grating shrieks, as Olli’s head bopped faster, and faster, and faster between the junction of her thighs……

He needed to fuck. All his life, all his restraint, all his hesitations, all of Olli's barriers to _cross that line with him_  - Christian had never fucked a hole other than a mouth. _And_ … _he needed to fuck right now._

He waited a blink of a second after Jessica had returned from her orgasmic high, to turn her on all fours, his eyes locked with swimming apple-green, as he entered her still-quivering, dripping hole in one quick thrust. She mewled through her exhaustion at Christian’s unexpected maneuvering. He gripped her by the hips, every thrust slapping against her ass, making them bounce. The harder he tried to look away from the apple-greens, the faster he fucked.

Jessica, it seemed, had gained renewed strength from her first finishing round, as she rose higher on her hands and knees, to push back against Christian’s cock, asking him to bury it deeper, faster. She reached for Olli’s still-hard cock, as Olli sat spread-eagle in front of her, and took him into her mouth. The lids shut over the apple-greens as Olli threw his head back against the pillows, his legs splaying wider, his knees bent and up, as a quiet sigh escaped his lips. Watching keenly, the heat in Christian’s cock rose to unbearable temperatures, as did the fire in his thoughts. It made him fuck Jessica with a dizzying speed, challenging her to keep up the rhythm of her sucking.

After a few failed attempts to keep Olli’s cock in her mouth, as her body shook with the pounding Christian was delivering behind her, she moved to suckle Olli’s balls. Then, moved lower, and lower, until Christian, from his vantage point, saw Jessica tonguing Olli’s starry pink hole. Olli was shaking his head from side to side, begging, pleading words, dribbling from his incoherent mouth, asking Jessica to _keep going_. A delicate, perfectly manicured red nail-polished finger disappeared into Olli, eliciting a groan from him; its action mocking Christian’s cock thrusting in and out of Jessica.

Olli was fisting his cock tight, its head turning from red to purple, his teeth biting his reddened swollen lower lip, beads of sweat trickling down his flat, smooth chest. His eyes were screwed shut.

Christian fucked Jessica harder, as if he could reach through her into Olli – into opening his damned apple-green eyes. Into moving beyond the picture obscenely laid out before him.

He heard the newly familiar high-pitched shriek, before he felt the spasms tightening around his cock, as Jessica rode out her second orgasm for the night. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled it as a long, groaning sigh, as her finger slipped from Olli’s ass, and she turned over and away from between them, and promptly fell asleep.

This made Olli finally open his eyes, looking confusedly at Jessica’s lax and prone body, at the cause of the emptiness in his ass, until his eyes finally found Christian’s.

Olli, caught, half-lying, half-sitting, legs splayed wide, a gap the size of a kneeling Jessica in the space between him…and Christian. Who was still unbearably hard, red throbbing cock, shiny with Jessica’s wet slickness, aimed directly at the center of Olli’s splayed legs.

Olli caught the look in Christian’s eyes as his own darted to Christian’s cock. He made an attempt to jump off the bed, but his legs were secured in position by a Christian-sized boulder between them, preventing them from closing.  He saw Christian’s nostrils flare, his blue eyes saturated with intensity, blue flames dancing hot and wild, and that’s all the thought he had left in mind, as Christian buried himself in Olli’s tightly puckered, invitingly winking hole, in one slow, _looong_ push. Olli groaned out as the length of Christian slid into him.

Christian waited. And waited.

His cock wanting to desperately, _and finally_ , beat a tattoo into the hot, tight walls of Olli’s ass, so he could read it like a blind man would read Braille.

Olli’s eyes looked down at his chest, refusing to meet Christian’s eyes. A quiet whisper finally rose from his barely parted lips. “Fuck me…”

Christian’s cock throbbed at those words, wanting to thrust hard and strong, to force Olli’s eyes upon him. He held his body rigid, sweat dripping down the spine of his back, down his chest, landing on Olli underneath him, flushed and ravishingly heated. “Olli, look at me.”

And waited.

He drew his cock out, painfully slowly, as Olli’s ass tightened around him, unwilling for his departure, and a sole whimper trembled out of Olli, soft and low.

And, just as slowly, he proceeded to slide his cock back in, into the velvet heat of Olli, groaning out, “ _look….at…me_ ,” until he was balls deep in again, impaled to the root, in Olli.

And, finally, _finally_ , those apple-green eyes looked up, and met the blue flames above them. And they held.

Christian rested his weight on his elbows, as he slowly lowered the rest of his body on top of Olli, his gut tightening in fluttering contractions as he felt Olli’s wet, hard cock rub up against his stomach. His tongue snaked out, his eyes never leaving the caught green gaze, as his mouth inched closer, intent on Olli’s parted lips.

“What the fuck??!!!” 

Both blue and green crashed sideways to meet the brown gaze of disgust.

“What the fuck are you both doing???!! Are you FUCKING EACH OTHER???!!”

Christian hastily moved back, eliciting a sharp hiss from Olli as his cock yanked out of Olli’s tightness – _too fast for comfort_. “Jessica…this, this isn’t what it looks like. I just….you passed out…and…”

“Fags!” Jessica spit out the word, looking between Christian and Olli, then finally settling on Olli. “I heard HE was one, but Sarah was right,” she turned to Christian, pointing a vile, too long, red nail-polished finger at Christian, “YOU are one too!!”

“Jessica, please, I can explain…” Christian went to reach for her, to calm her, to soothe her, to contain her…the situation…this….what he _knew_ would get out of hand. What he predicted even before it began. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. Too many fucks and too little time to get it all straight.

“Don’t touch me!” With that Jessica shot up from the bed, finding her clothing on the floor, and ran towards the bedroom door.

“Jessica!” Christian was too late in finishing his statement as he heard the resounding _bang_ of the door closing behind her frantically retreating form. “don’t….tell…anybody.”

“Well…the kitty is out of the bag now.” Olli observed, looking after the recently shut door.

Christian pinned Olli by his shoulders back into the mattress, his latent rage always so quick to rise to the surface in Olli’s damning presence. “YOU! You! _I told you to leave_. Now look what you did, you fucking fag!”

Olli’s responding smirk was even more infuriating. “Me?! Hey, _your_ curiosity killed that particular kitty cat.”

Christian got off the bed in disgust, in confusion, in a whirlwind of emotions he didn’t know if he would ever be able to look in the face.

He felt Olli clap him on his shoulder. “Congratulations. Hella way to lose your virginity, bud.”

Christian shook off the offending hand from his shoulder; no joy in finally satiating his curiosity with Jessica. He put on his own clothes, and walked out of the room, leaving a naked Olli, alone on the bed.

A latent flame burned low and obscure, in the back of his mind, in the root of his still rock-hard, throbbing cock; its sparks ignited that day – apple green and alive. The game was set; resisting the temptation of the forbidden fruit. 


	7. Island Beyond Self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "One day surely the wars would end, and Jim would come home, if only to lie broken in MacMurrough’s arms, he would come to his island home. And MacMurrough would have it built for him, brick by brick, washed by the rain and the reckless sea. In the living stream they’d swim a season. For maybe it was true that no man is an island: but he believed that two very well might be." - Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys

Christian’s hands fumbled as he set the receiver back on the phone’s hook. He took a few calming breaths and chastised himself for not reigning in his emotions. He needed a strong heart right now. Especially now.

 

_He was going to be fine. Papa was going to be fine. His heart was going to be just fine._

 

Christian tried desperately to make himself believe his own empty promises. To keep at bay the same desperate fear that had taken hold of him, too many times before, in his past. 

 

His papa’s heart was never the same since his mama left them and her life, when he was sixteen. It was the same time Oliver Sabel returned back into his life.

 

Christian’s mama had been the only one who knew all there was between the boys – Christian’s only confidante that he had felt safe and secure to turn towards. How Christian wished he could turn back time and set everything right again. The actions of the past had cost Christian his mother, his father, and eventually, it would also take from him, Olli.

And so, it began.

Two years ago, Christian’s mama decided that facing what she had done to their father was worse than facing an oncoming train. Christian knew there was a reason why he always disliked trains. One couldn’t change their minds and screech on the breaks – it would be too late. Always too late. 

So, on a sunny autumn day, his mama clasped Christian tight to her maddeningly beating heart, and told him again how much she cherished the hummingbird he was finally able to make for her.

In her mother’s lilt, which was his favourite song, he remembered her last lullaby. “Oh, how deeply my boy loves.” She had stroked his cheek, her blue eyes clouding with the weight of the past. “How lucky I have been for my Christian.”

She rocked him in her arms then, and Christian felt fear grasp tightly at his heart, so he held on to her that much tighter. He was afraid, so afraid to let go.

However, the weakness in him was too strong, so he did. He did finally let her go – to go see hummingbirds dance with wildflowers in eternal sunlight.

And, just like that, Christian was left alone to face his papa, and helplessly bear witness to his papa’s heart dying, with each passing day, and each passing glance, at Christian. He could only stand back and watch as his papa tried to forget, finding solace at the bottom of a bottle or in the rush of a risk. Watching his father, Christian realized an important lesson: a gamble with one’s life was easy, when that life held little value.

If Christian was honest with himself, he knew that his papa’s heart started to tear even before then. Ever since…well….it was the same time that Olli also went away.

That was when the free-fall spiral into the rabbit hole truly began, and all because of the price of Christian’s love. _How wrong his mother had been._

***

 

They took Olli away on a chilly winter afternoon, right before his thirteenth birthday. Unlucky thirteen.

 

Christian remembered being sandwiched between his mama and Gregor, glancing sideways at his father, sitting away from them, at the end of the bench, his face stone-set, his eyes distant. 

 

Christian was trying to understand what was happening. Big scary words were being spoken, directed harshly at Olli. Olli was being punished for killing his father – they called it _murder_. They called Olli a murderer. It was all wrong, so very, very wrong. Such chaotic madness.

 

Day after day, with the support of his mother, Christian would go to the courthouse.

 

Some days, they asked Christian to talk about Olli’s _big secret_. Christian would turn to Olli, only to see him looking down, refusing to give him permission – so Christian did what he was asked.

 

He told them all the details he knew of how brutally and horribly Olli’s father inflicted wounds upon wounds on Olli – the emotional and the physical. He spoke of seeing the fresh belt-marks across Olli’s bum, angry, bleeding and red, and the teeth-marks, just the same. He spoke of the days when he found Olli in the woods, smashing his own fist against a tree. Over and over again. To replace one pain for another. Almost every truth he had at his disposal to set Olli free, Christian told, except _one_. _The one that sentenced the two of them to a mutual prison of silence, and made a coward out of him._

 

Christian battled with himself to conquer his own fears, his own doubts, and every day he lost the battle only to win the war. The war raged every night when Christian closed his eyes, it came in the form of nightmares, bloody and deafening, and Christian welcomed it with the twisted lust of a masochist.

 

The rest of the days, Christian could only helplessly sit in the audience, his eyes never leaving the back of Olli’s head, willing Olli to turn around, to catch a glimpse of his apple-green eyes. To reassure Olli. To reassure himself.

 

Olli never once turned around, never once acknowledged Christian’s presence. He sat there and denied everything Christian said about his father. He spoke of how much his father had loved him, about how he made up sordid tales for Christian, to evoke his pity, just so he would be his friend.

 

Christian sat there, shocked, internally begging and screaming at Olli to stop the lies. The lies, undoubtedly asked of Olli, by his mother – to save face, to avoid further disgrace.

 

The child psychologist said that Olli had a history of maladjusted, aggressive, and self-injurious behaviours. He said that he found it disturbing the nonchalance with which Olli seemed to acknowledge his own actions; an evidence for his apparent lack of empathy. He diagnosed Olli with conduct disorder, citing him to be at risk for developing psychopathy when he grew up. Hysteric laughter bubbled from Christian, his mind wanting to yell at the bald, fat man that he did not have a clue about Olli; that he didn’t know the first thing about Oliver Sabel’s true being.

 

They asked Olli why he killed his father.

 

All of Olli’s answers were delivered in the same monotone. “Because I wanted to see how a gun works.”

 

“But you shot your father three times. The last one you aimed at his face, finally killing him. Why would you shoot him three times if all you wanted to know was how a gun works?”

Olli had shrugged in response. “Because guns are supposed to kill, and I wanted to see how a gun works.”

And so, on that final day, which Christian could still vividly recall, they announced that they were sending Olli away, far away from Christian, for three years. Christian had wanted to scream at the judge, yell and kick his face in, for punishing not just Olli, but himself. For punishing the undeserved. For the unfairness of it all. For the lies and the silence that snatched Olli away.

They were taking away his best friend. They were taking away his Olli. And Olli willingly went. And he could do nothing to stop it.

He remembered Olli being led away in handcuffs, and him running towards him, only to be scooped up by the guards before he could reach him. His body shook with tears as he watched Olli disappear through the courtroom door, until he had no more strength and could only collapse into his mother’s waiting arms.

He remembered his mother, building up her courage to approach Olli’s mama, to convey her condolences. Olli’s mother had slapped his mama, her eyes wild with rage. “Don’t you dare…..All because of you and…..him!” Henriette had turned her scorn-filled green eyes on him then. “You have ruined everything! My son’s life, my life…….everything!”

Christian wanted to deny, but he knew he couldn’t. His conscience would not let him. So, with head bowed, he had offered an apology – spoken to Henriette, but aimed at the one person who was no longer there to hear it.

And from that day on, Christian took to his own self-imposed prison, forcing himself to take up loneliness as his penance. The same fate that was his life before Olli had entered. The same fate that would remain for as long as it took Olli to return again.

***

Olli returned with spring, three years later. Christian’s soul blossomed when he heard that Oliver Sabel had returned home.

“Mama, Olli’s back! I’m going to go see him now!”

“Christian, maybe it would be best if you let Olli come to you. He just returned and he may not be feeling up for visitors yet, hm?”

“I’m not a visitor to Olli, Mama. It'll be fine.” Christian was at a loss for how to explain to his mama that he wanted to share so much, three years of life, with Olli. To see how he had changed; wondering if Olli could out-grow Christian’s attempt at a mustache.

“Christian, please listen to me to me on this, okay? Please just let Olli be and let him come to you.” His mama had sighed, as if she knew the futility of the words as she hung them in the air.

Of course, Christian didn't listen. He gathered his Mama up in his arms, and nowadays, he felt big enough to envelope her in his arms. He'd outgrown his Mama, and could carry her if need be. He kissed the top of her hair. "I'll tell Olli you said, 'hello'. He should know he has friends here still. Right, mama?" She resigned her head with a nod, and that was all the wishes Christian needed, to turn out of the house, running as fast as he could, right through the woods, and he didn’t catch his breath until his fist had finished pounding on Olli’s front door.

He lost his breath just the moment after, as Olli stood facing him, and Christian wondered if his eyes had always been that green or whether it was a trick of the sunlight. He was taller, broader and no longer a lanky 13 years old boy. He didn’t have a mustache but a noticeable growth of stubble covered his lower face.

Christian self-consciously ran a finger through his mustache and peered at Olli through lowered eyes. He had no idea why he was suddenly so nervous. “Hi.”

“Christian.” Olli’s voice was deeper too. Christian was confused by the little jolt that ran down his spine when Olli spoke, saying his name in that voice that Christian hadn’t heard before.

“I…ah…I heard you were back and I just….well…I just wanted to see….and….” Christian was having trouble formulating words, let alone, full sentences. Olli was different. Seeing Olli made Christian feel different. Hearing Olli made Christian nervous about the difference.

“Well you saw. I’m back. Was there anything else?” Olli asked as he nonchalantly folded his arms across his chest and rested his lithe body against the doorframe.

Christian was confused by the response. Wasn’t Olli happy to see him? Maybe Olli never forgave him for the past – maybe Olli had three years to think of what Christian did to him and it was much too much time.

This was not how Olli returned home. He had pictured it a million times, in a million different ways, but, this was never how it was supposed to happen. Christian swallowed thickly.  “No, uh…nothing else…I guess…..”

Olli responded by shutting the door on him.

***

Olli was different, more distant, when he returned from his three years exile to the juvenile offenders’ institution. He made it a point to ignore Christian completely. Christian, on the other hand, couldn’t avoid Olli as easily. Olli’s reputation, on his return, seemed to precede him.

The first whispers started in school - of the find behind the bleachers facing the tracks. Whispers left the school boys’ mouths, amidst nudges and smirks, of the talented Sabel mouth. Far and wide it reached, until Christian’s ears got a hold. And burned red. 

Apparently, all one needed was to drop a note in Oliver Sabel’s locker, with a time for a bleachers’ rendezvous, and money in one’s pocket that was waiting for the pleasure to be spent. Christian shook his head, disbelieving - it _couldn’t_ be true.

The wait underneath the bleachers was unbearable. Christian checked and double-checked his watch, hoping that time would hurry up and just move on. He looked through the cracks, across the tracks, towards the school’s door, wishing with all his might to not see the familiar figure.

 _No, please no!_ His wishes broke into a million little pieces of shards imploding within his heart, as he saw Olli making his way towards the bleachers.

When Olli rounded the corner and came face to face with him, Christian knew. Olli’s face went from shock to practiced boredom within a fraction of a second – too long a time to escape Christian’s notice. “So….it is true.”

Olli replied with his hackles up, ready to fire. “And what if it is? It’s really none of your damn business!”

Christian couldn’t help but grab Olli by the arms, shaking the boy until every bit of madness could leave him. “What the hell happened to you? Why are you like this?! Ignoring me, doing….doing…” Christian tried to get the words out but just the thought of having to say it out loud made his vocal chords dry up, so he asked for an explanation instead. “Why the fuck are you doing this?!”

“I learned how to survive while I was away. And that’s what I’m doing now. Stand in my way, make it harder for me. Or move aside, and let me survive. What will it be Christian?”

A nagging thought as a likely explanation settled inside Christian. “Are you punishing me for what you had to go through?”

Olli’s laugh was hollow. “No, Christian, as arrogant as that thought is, no. Trust me, this has nothing to do with you.”

Christian had only one trump card left, and it was crumpled and ripped, at best. “I can’t be your friend if you do this.”

Olli’s eyes burned a hole right through the flimsy, worthless card. “Perfect.”

The perfect truth fell upon Christian then – like a heavy blanket on a too-warm day - Olli had returned but he did not return to, nor for, Christian.

That night Christian finally returned Jessica’s phone calls, much to his brother’s delight, to set up his first ever date with a woman.

***

Christian’s mother’s death, later in the same year of Olli’s return, drove Christian further into the lonely darkness that had been his reality ever since Olli left three years ago. His father, who had always favoured Gregor, seemed to outright start despising Christian. Christian couldn’t really blame him, as he agreed with his father’s sentiment. He _was_ to be despised as his very own creation and being was tainted. Why would anyone stay?

But, one did finally stay, or perhaps, finally returned.

Olli came to visit Christian each day since his mother passed, and slowly, they dusted off the muddied old memories left long-forgotten by the creek’s edge, and together, watered them all back to life. New memories soon began to grow like little green buds, adorning the edges of their friendship.

***

Christian still remembered the day Gregor had come home and asked Christian what happened to a freshly-turned seventeen years old Olli. Apparently, he had seen him in town, face black and blue. Turning up at Olli’s house, and asking Henriette through the tightly shut front door about Olli’s whereabouts, had gotten him a lash of Henriette’s blind rage. Henreitte never liked Christian, right from the start. Not that he could blame her completely, given the reality of their history. Regardless, it wasn’t about her nor him; the reason he had ventured to the house that day, a rare event in itself.

He recalled her parting words for him to get off her property and that her son undoubtedly deserved it, wherever he was. He remembered offering one last frustrated yell about her selfish ways and lack of mothering instincts accompanied by a swift kick and a punch to the shut door. To which, Henriette responded by threatening to call the police if he did not leave.

Christian had finally found Olli hiding in the deer-stand treehouse of their childhood, deep in their woods. He was a cocoon unto his flesh, threads of bruising red marking the way from his shoulders to his ass. Imprints of angry, callous fingers around Olli’s neck choked out a sob of revolt from Christian. He took in Olli’s body, and his swollen face – eyes wide shut. Green eyes flashing in initial _panic_...before the green storm settled as it recognized Christian’s head popping into view, way up above.

“Who was it, Olli?”

As expected, he met silence.

“Olli, who was it?”

Round two, silence. His nerves started to prickle on ends.

“Olli, look at me….” One breath, two, and finally Olli turned to meet his eyes.

The inner harshness he felt came out in a plea of confusion, its rawness unveiled. “ _Tell me_ , who did this to you?”

He can’t even recall the name today, but he remembered Olli giving him a name of a john he met at the outskirts of town. How the man had told Olli that he liked it rough and when Olli protested, he took it as an invitation to stake his claim. Christian didn’t wait for Olli to finish, he needed to get out of the treehouse, needed to get the vision of Olli, broken and bruised, out of his mind. He remembered Olli shouting after him, his own name an echo from Olli’s lips, that he carried with him as he sought out Gregor.

With the help of Gregor, and a few of their “buddies” at the boxing club, and plenty of alcohol courtesy of the Mann brothers, the scene was set. All the brothers had to do was finally give the gang of boys a readily available outlet to release some aggression towards the world. And so, the hunt began – the hunter was going to be the hunted.

If not for Gregor, Christian would not have stopped gutting the man in the stomach with his shoes, over and over, repeating the threat of such consequences should a hair be touched on Olli’s head without his consent. Christian warned the puddle of scum to spread the word, to others, who may also be so inclined. With every kick, he aimed to make his statement; the vision of the Olli he left in the treehouse, refusing to go away. So he kicked harder, punched stronger. Again, and again. Until Gregor pulled him back by the shoulders with one final word. “ENOUGH!”

It wasn’t enough, but Christian finally let him be, with a parting spit to his bloodied, pleading, unrecognizable face.

Later that night, Christian found Olli in the same place he left him, hunched into himself, in one corner of their treehouse. He slowly started to unpack the backpack he brought with him, bringing out a blanket, first-aid kit supplies, a flashlight and food. Olli’s barely-open eyes followed his every move, silently.

When Olli still didn’t move from his corner, Christian approached him steadily, seeing Olli tense at his approach. That hurt. “Olli, I promise, it won’t ever happen again.”

And with those words, he had a handful of Olli clinging desperately and tightly to his neck. Christian gently laid Olli on the blanket and in the dimming, artificial light of his flashlight, he tended to the bruises he could see with the naked eyes. The rest, he didn’t know how to apply balm to them. So his lips pressed a prayer of promise to every place he touched, every spot on Olli’s body, discoloured by anger, uncaring and pain.

He moved lower down Olli’s body, feeling Olli tense up underneath him, and his fingers joined his lips in reassurance. Slowly, Olli relaxed under his touch, but when his breath hovered over Olli’s cock, a tiny whisper escaped Olli. “You don’t……..”

He didn’t wait for Olli to finish.

The first time he went down on Olli’s cock, tasted it, let his tastebuds awaken to it, it felt good. More. Like it _belonged_. The re-union was theirs, at last.

He let Olli fuck his mouth with abandon, as his litany of angry words turned to sobbing shame, and Olli released everything into Christian, who had been waiting all this time, to catch him all.

Olli reached for Christian’s cock then, but Christian took his hand and placed it between their heaving chests. He tucked Olli’s face into the nook of his own neck, put his arms right around Olli, held him, willing himself to absorb the shock, shake and shivers rolling off Olli’s body. 

They rocked as one; neither willing to let go first. The only sounds were Christian’s hushed whispers of a promise, made futile by time, “ _I’m here, I’m here_ ….,” on unending repetition.

***

The hospital had a stench to it that Christian couldn’t stomach. He fidgeted again in the uncomfortable plastic chair, until Gregor elbowed him to sit still. Their papa was going to be released today, and the doctors told the brothers that their papa needed to make a lot of changes in his life, if he wanted to keep his heart ticking. Christian sighed at the hopelessness of such a prescription.

“Gregor, I need you to look into something for me.”

His brother, who had been staring intently at the fluorescent lights flickering above, turned to quizzically look at Christian.

“Find out what you can about a guy named Bach. It’s probably not his real name. He’s not local, but he stops by our town every so often, some kind of businessman. He is definitely involved in prostitution, but I wanna know what other pies the bastard has his illegal fingers in.”

Gregor let out a loud sigh. “What mess is Olli dragging you into now?”

“This is not about Olli. Just….man, can you do it or not? It’s important. And I need this info soon, like before the week ends.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay….I’ll ask around. But, man, we don’t need more trouble. We already have this bullshit with Papa.”

“Gregor, a heart attack is not bullshit.”

“Whatever, I’m going out for a smoke.”

Gregor left Christian to wait alone in the hospital, the ugly fluorescent light, and the stench of death hanging around him. The knot in the pit of Christian’s stomach started to throb. It was a feeling Christian knew all too well. It had appeared before, in his past, and he had prayed every time for it to be the last. However, here it was again.

Maybe, just maybe, this time would be different. 


	8. Taming the Untamed Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Old Man Joe had a horse on his farm; his name was Faust. He was a black beauty, right down to the white star on his forehead. Without fail, Christian would always end his shift at the farm with a visit to Faust. He’d ask Faust how his day went herding the cows on the pastures, or whether he would like to go for a ride.

 

They would bond over the freedom of riding directionless across open fields, their hearts palpitating as one, bursting with elation, trying to outrun the wind.

 

And that was where Gregor found his baby brother, in Faust’s stall, deep in conversation, as he brushed down his old friend.

 

“Is Faust in a philosophical mood today?” Gregor asked.

 

Christian looked up at his brother, stilling his brushing, as Faust snorted his disapproval at their interruption. “He told me to be wary of deals with the devil.”

 

Gregor raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Well, that’s sound advice. I hope that means a deal with an angel should never be rejected, right?”

 

“The tricky part is recognizing which is which.”

 

Gregor eyed his brother in consideration. “What about a deal offered by your very own brother?”

 

This got Christian’s full attention as he put the brush down, gave a reassuring pat to Faust’s starry forehead, and stepped out of the stall to stand in front of his brother, arms folded in suspicion. “What are you talking about? What deal?”

 

“One way ticket out of here. You and me, we leave for Dusseldorf, and get ready to start our lives, fresh. All the possibilities, everything, it’s ours, just waiting. How about it?”

 

“Are you out of your mind, Gregor? First off, Papa is still recovering from his minor heart attack, we still have to finish off the season at the farm, and most importantly, we have no money, no contacts, no nothing. How will we survive? What will we do? Where the fuck will we go?”

 

Gregor gave an exasperated sigh and put his hands on his brother’s shoulders, stilling Christian’s agitation. “We are not helping Papa any sticking around here. Waiting for him to “get better” is a hopeless cause, he’ll just fall back into his old patterns, and we’re just going to waste our own lives, along with him. If anything, if we get to the city, the opportunities would open up for us. We can actually make enough money to send back home. Way more than now, working at some stupid farm! We can actually _help_ him then. Once we’re a bit settled, we’ll take him out of this town too, and bring him over to live in the city with us.”

 

Christian shook his head, ready to rebut, but Gregor forged on. “As for Old Man Joe, he’ll understand. Hell, he’ll probably chew us out because we waited this long to leave this boonfuck place. If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late. See, man, I have this contact in Dusseldorf. A buddy of mine – Angsar – some bastard child of a royal family. Loaded up the fucking ass. Met him at some club in Dusseldorf a while back. Complete and embarrassing failure with the ladies, so we made a pretty good team that night. His money, my charms. He’s creaming his pants to get me to go local; he’ll help us. He’s already promised my little brother a job at the castle. See, I got it all set, man. Trust me!”

 

Christian gave a hollow laugh as he tried to understand the barrage of unannounced insanity that seemed to have befallen his brother. “Castle?! Gregor, are you high?”

 

Gregor looked less than impressed at Christian’s lack of enthusiasm with his proposal. “No, I am perfectly sober and you’re just being an unnecessary downer.” He huddled closer to his younger brother, taking his shaggy head into the nook of his elbow, bringing their faces inches apart. Blue against blue. “Take a risk, man. Now or never, come on! You and me, the Mann brothers, we’re gonna take on the world together, baby! We’re _meant_ to do this!”

 

Christian rolled his eyes at his brother’s faulty over-enthusiasm and slipped out of his brother’s headlock. “Oh boy. Gregor….just stop. We gotta have a more concrete plan, we gotta be more reasonable. We can’t….I mean….this is crazy….it’s too sudden….we can’t just…. _leave_!”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Well….as I already told you…..”  
  
Gregor interrupted him. “I already explained those. What other excuse you got? Throw ‘em at me.”

 

Christian swallowed thickly, as seconds turned to minutes, and then raised his blue gaze to fix on his brother’s familiar one, filled with focused intent. He couldn’t deny that stare. “Okay, I’ll do it….”

 

“YES!!” Gregor lifted Christian up in a hearty hug and gave a few good pats to his back.

 

“…..BUT!”

 

Like an unsuspecting balloon pierced by a needle, Gregor’s breath of elation left him as he stepped back from his brother, once again hesitant and wary. “But what?”

 

“Olli comes with us.”

 

“NO! NO. No. Not gonna happen. That’s out of the question. NO!”

 

“Then so am I.”

 

Gregor grabbed a fistful of Christian’s shirt as he roughly pinned his little brother up against the wooden stable walls, rattling him a few times, for good measure. “Listen to me, you fucking stubborn sonofabitch! Don’t you get it?! This is supposed to be _it_. I’m offering you a chance to start over!!! No past, no fucked up shit between you two, no shame, no fucking Olli! Fresh start!”

 

Christian tried to wrestle out of his brother’s hold, but Gregor was intent to make Christian stay put until he understood. A battle for leverage, for surrender, ensued, as both boys tumbled to the dirt-covered ground, each unwilling to lose.

 

Faust started neighing and snorting from the stable, picking up on Christian’s distress and grunts, which had Old Man Joe running towards his farmhands, cursing up a storm.

 

When he finally separated the boys, he looked at both in disgust, and told them to take the day off to sort out the mess. He threw a parting remark at the boys as he turned to leave, “You’re supposed to be men and brothers, for christsakes.”

 

Gregor and Christian, feeling unwelcomed contrition seep into them, surreptitiously dusted off their clothing, as they quietly walked away side by side. Each was locked into a silent pit of blame at the other, for their own hopes dashed.

 

On their ride back home, Gregor tried to calmly explain to Christian the practical limitations to Olli accompanying them. This, it seemed, finally unraveled a few yet-to-be revealed relevant pieces of information, much to Christian’s chagrin. 

 

For one, Gregor had promised Sarah that he would take her along, and she, of course, couldn’t in turn, not take her best friend along; Jessica.

 

Christian was thoroughly puzzled as to why Gregor would agree to such a foursome. He vaguely understood the reasoning for Sarah tagging along – Gregor was simply pussy-whipped. But, Jessica?! The reason there was no more space in the car, no provisions for Olli once they got settled in Dusseldorf, was because Jessica took his spot. It made no sense.

 

Granted, Christian had no animosity against Jessica, and if he wanted to really revisit the past, then he was more than a little thankful that Jessica did not fulfill her promise to tell everyone what she had witnessed between Olli and himself that day. The girl had kept her mouth shut, for some unfathomable reason. And ever since that disastrous last meeting, Christian had stayed clear of Jessica. But now, faced with the biggest dream of his life, to escape this damning echoing town, it seemed that, according to Gregor, such a promise held no space for Olli. Jessica had an uncle working as a butler in the same castle where Angsar lived, and she would be more of an asset than a liability on the trip. Unlike Olli.

 

Secondly, as Gregor aptly pointed out, even if Christian wanted Olli to go with them, it would still depend on Olli.

 

“Christian, are you sure that even if you ask, Olli would want to come with us?”

 

Christian opened his mouth once, twice, thrice; suddenly bereft of sound. Thoughts of an unknown Bach blaringly belligerent in his mind, the truth of Gregor’s words taunting him cruel, crushing, until he sliced them all with a certainty born of hope. “He will.”

 

***

 

Heartache, heartbreak, for the heart’s sake, for it all, vulnerability was inevitably the barter of choice. And this was how Oliver Sabel found his best friend’s older brother, Gregor Mann, on that chilly night. It was well past the witching hour, and the church’s bells would soon chime in two more hours beyond midnight. And the stud had turned into a slug.

 

Reeking of alcohol, refusing to leave his wheels, Gregor was half slumping out of his car’s window, loudly warning anyone who would bother to listen to take heed of the evil charms of a woman. “And their lies, oh, their beautiful, red-headed lies!!!” He added with a slur.

 

Olli shook his head and chuckled under his breath. He went over to the Mercedes, and opened the driver-side door, only to have Gregor tumble out of the car and on to the concrete, in a surprised, cursing heap. He stepped over Gregor, sat himself in the driver’s seat, nudged the rest of Gregor’s limbs out of the car, and then promptly shut the door. Starting the engine, he rested his elbow on the open window, and called out to the man, crumpled below on the ground. “I’m driving your baby tonight, Gregor. Either you’re coming with me, or I drive this baby alone.”

 

Gregor’s motor reflexes suddenly sprang into action as he hurled himself off the ground, rushing in an uncoordinated stagger, to the passenger-side door, right before the engine revved again for the third time. He fumbled to secure his belt on tight and pointed a finger at his unwanted chauffeur for the night. “You hurt her, I kill you.”

 

Olli flashed Gregor a devilish smile and stepped on the gas pedal. Driving such a beast, he knew, was going to be a fun ride.

 

***

 

Olli was deathly afraid of horses. Christian found out this interesting fact when Olli visited him at Old Man Joe’s farm one day, over a year ago, and got his first introduction to Faust – thirty feet away.

 

Christian, holding Faust’s reins, had teasingly shouted back across the distance, at Olli. “How can you know for sure he’s a horse, from so far away?”

 

Olli was none too convinced. “What else can that giant beast be?”

 

Christian shrugged as he shared an impish wink with his horse friend. “Maybe he’s a gentle little pony. Come closer, then you can be sure.”

 

Olli’s voice held no compromise. “No way! And, no thanks!”

 

Christian laughed. “Is that a challenge? Mark my words, Olli, there’s hope for you yet!”

 

***

 

“Never fall in love with a woman, man, never. It’s hopeless. They’ll always betray you in the end.”

 

Olli smirked at his drunken companion. “Maybe I should turn gay then, huh?”

 

Gregor shifted in his seat, to a more upright position, and cleared his throat. “Well, I mean….that’s not the solution, obviously, but, well…….”

 

Olli couldn’t contain his laughter any longer at Gregor’s unease.  “Aw man, I’m sorry. Sarah broke up with you, or something?”

 

“Psst! That’s giving that whore too much credit! She fucked first, told me never. Well, I found out anyway, and get this, she denies it! To my face!”

 

“Maybe she’s telling the truth?”

 

“And everyone else is lying?”

 

“Sometimes it can happen.”

 

“Not when more than one witness has seen her making out with Phillip, all over town.” Gregor’s voice trembled as he added, “She wasn’t even trying to hide it.”

 

Olli helplessly glanced from between the road and his passenger. “That does suck.” He gave a few reassuring pats to Gregor’s shoulder, hoping the gesture conveyed some comfort. He had never seen Gregor so emotionally unbound and was out of his depth on how to correctly offer solace and comfort to anyone, let alone his friend’s older brother. It was not like they were particularly close in any personal way. All their ties were knotted at one root – Christian – whose presence Olli desperately missed for awkward moments like these.

 

***

 

Christian had lured Olli to Old Man Joe’s farm two weeks later, with the plea of needing an extra hand to finish his chores, as Gregor was absent. One of the chores was to clean the stable, to which he promptly followed up with a promise to Olli that Faust would be safely locked away in his stall.

 

That day, Olli had gotten ten feet nearer to Faust, and his fear was none the wiser. 

 

***

 

“All my plans, all my hopes. It’s…over!” Gregor cried out, banging the back of his head against his seat, and then finally burrowing his face in between his palms.

 

“Man, you’ll make new ones. Without Sarah. Better plans. That’s right, better plans. Pussy-free plans. I know it’ll only be a half-cocked plan then, but still….”

 

This finally got a slight chuckle out of Gregor, for which Olli was relieved. Sexual jokes always worked to break any tension, unless one was in a church or something.

 

As if hearing its name taken in vain, the church bells chimed three times in the distance, marking three hours past midnight.

 

Olli turned the car to round the corner, driving up along the dirt road leading to the small white house, the Mann residence. “Well, you’re home, man.”

 

Gregor let out a snarl of disgust. “Fuck! I can’t face that anymore.”

 

“Huh? What?”

 

Gregor emphatically pointed a finger at his humble abode. “THAT!” He turned to Olli when the other finally turned off the car and killed the headlights. “You know, I was going to get out of here. Take her away. Sarah. Myself. And Christian. She….she fucking ruined it all.”

 

Olli sat up with interest. “Seriously?”

 

Gregor looked at Olli for a few measured moments, as if in decision, and then finally sighed with heavy weariness. “Yeah, that was the plan anyway.”

 

Olli’s voice held steel-tight emphasis. “Do it! Fuck if it’s with or without Sarah. You, you and Christian. Do it! You have to do it for Christian!”

 

“You don’t think I fucking know that? Want that? He’s _my_ fucking brother!”

 

Olli looked away from the accusation swimming in Gregor’s ice-blue eyes. He made a move to vacate the car, only to be stilled by a cold hand on his shoulder.

 

Gregor eyed Olli with a quick sideways glance. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said in whispered hush.

 

***

 

“Come on, Olli, it’s not that complicated. You fill the pail with water and just drop it by his stall. Faust will not attack his water bearer. Trust me.”

 

“What if he bites me?”

 

Christian bit his lower lip to keep his smile hidden. “I’ll bite him back for you.”

 

“Not funny! Why don’t you just do it and I’ll do whatever you’re doing!”

 

“You can’t. You don’t know how to separate the piles. Come on, man. Don’t leave the poor animal thirsty.”

 

Christian watched, with rising amusement, as Olli wadded up his courage, and hastily dropped the filled pail by Faust’s stall, only to trip over himself while scurrying away, followed by a pitched yell and a jump, when Faust snorted out his thanks.

 

When Olli turned to see if Christian had caught the sight, Christian gave him two encouraging thumbs-up. “He just thanked you. If I didn’t know any better, he might already be halfway in love with you.”

 

Olli rolled his eyes but gave a double-look back towards the stable. Just then, he heard Faust snort again. “Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” he said and smiled.

 

***

 

“I probably should thank that motherfucker, Phillip, for showing me her true colours. And you know what the worst thing is? She fucking left me blue-balled. Tonight, man, tonight, we were gonna to fuck and dream. Dream about a life far away from here, in Dusseldorf. Together. And, what the fuck did I end up with instead? A whole lot of useless arguing and denying, and I didn’t even get to have a good riddance fuck.”

 

Olli sighed, his patience with Gregor’s Sarah drama wearing thin. “Gregor, stop changing the subject. Tell me why you and Christian can’t just take off. He seriously needs to get out of this town. Why is that complicated?”

 

Gregor avoided looking at Olli as he shifted in his seat. Thoughts of Sarah and the night’s alcohol rushed through his inner streams, pooling uncomfortably between his legs. “You know any whores available right now?” To which he received a pointedly raised eyebrow from Olli, and thus he hastily added, “I mean, female ones.”

 

“Gregor….”

 

“What? I’m not trying to insult you, man. You know, what you do, that’s not really all that bad. I mean, I’ve been thinking, and at least _you_ get paid. Sarah does the same thing - for free.”

 

“Trust me, it’s not easy doing what I do.”

 

Gregor turned to Olli. “I believe that.” Piqued by further curiosity, he asked, “Then why do you do it?”

 

“For the money, why else?”

 

“I’d never be able to do that, though, not even for money, man. I mean, letting a random dude stick his……”

 

Olli snorted and interrupted Gregor’s flights of drunken fancy. “You can pimp yourself out to the ladies, instead.”

 

This got a good chuckle out of Gregor. “Get the fuck out of here. Women don’t need prostitutes. They can get sex whenever they want, and, for free!”

 

Olli shrugged and offered Gregor a squint and a twinkle of his eyes. “You’d be surprised at what some rich, lonely women need. A virile young stud and a pretty penny to have him break them in.”

 

“No fucking way.”

 

“Yes fucking way.” Olli elbowed Gregor, “Why? You thinking of possible career options when you guys reach Dusseldorf?”

 

“Nah, man. I got that covered. A buddy of mine, Angsar, he’s going to help us out. Financially, I mean. Well, until we get settled a bit.”

 

“That’s solid, man. Take it. It’ll be good for Christian. I’m heading out soon too. But, I’m headed to Koln….and….”

 

Gregor was brought up short by Olli’s revelation. “Wait, wait, hold on. Say that again. You’re leaving, too?”

 

Olli looked at Gregor, thoroughly confused. “Well, yeah. Didn’t Christian mention anything? I got a contact too, like your Angsar. Rob Marenbach, he’s setting me up in Koln and it’ll be…”

 

This was yet another news that had Gregor’s muddled brain slowly start to fire the neurons. He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew that Olli was saying something vital….something familiar. “What did you say his name was again?”

 

“Ma….I mean, his name’s Bach.”

 

The pieces of the puzzle started to fall together for the older Mann brother. His mind raced, wondering what it truly meant for all the possibilities he had always imagined for his future, and that of his baby brother.

 

Finally, he spoke the one truth both occupants of the car knew with perfect and doomed certainty. “God knows why, but, he won’t ever let you go.”

 

***

 

“Olli, I’m right here. See? I’m holding the carrot with you,” Christian gently pushed their tangled hands towards Faust’s snout, “slow….slow….,” to which Faust gave a quick and hearty chomp to the end of the carrot stick, which elicited a surprised squeak from Olli, as he pushed back against the security of Christian’s solid chest behind him.

 

Olli’s voice held awe. “He didn’t bite off my finger.”

 

Christian gave Olli’s flank a teasing squeeze, just above his hip. “The carrot is tastier.”

 

***

 

The occupants of the car turned to one another, each on a quest for the answers in the other’s eyes. In the dark of the car, piercing blue eyes, like that of a flighty summer day, met the forbidden apple-green, but it was wrong, all wrong. Where there was always a destined spark, that night, between those eyes, there held an unspeakable strain.

 

When Olli’s hand landed on Gregor’s jean-clad cock, it was hard. When Gregor clasped Olli’s wrist, to still his movement further, his hesitation was soft. When their eyes found one another again, every sanity fell away. With a tremor floating uncertainly from their parted lips, they threw their last hope to the weighty silence of the dark-covered night. Their last wish, each prayed separately, each unknown to the other, asked for the same absolution. Forgiveness.

 

With that, Olli took Gregor into his mouth in one swoop and soon the only sounds in the car were that of suckling flesh. It echoed off the walls of the car, getting louder and more obscene.

 

Gregor, for his part, pounded the ceiling with his fist, willing his eyes to shut tight. The pressure was building, and he battled with wanting to throw the wet, heated mouth off, or plunge in chokingly deep.

 

***

 

Slowly, Christian got Olli confident enough to lead Faust around by his reins. Easy conversation between all three companions, kept the pace. 

 

At the end of the day, while they got Faust ready to settle in his stall for the night, Christian gave his final verdict. “I think you’re ready to ride him, Olli.”

 

***

 

Gregor watched, in a state of panicked shock, as Olli peeled all his clothes off, and proceeded to straddle his lap. In the process, his thigh brushed against Gregor’s forearm, and Gregor noted in utter puzzlement, that Olli had hairy legs.

 

“Move the seat back, there’s not enough room.”

 

Gregor looked up at Olli, hearing him speak, but completely failing to understand. He could only owlishly blink up at Olli a few times, in response.

 

Olli rolled his eyes, gave a great belaboured sigh, and reached behind Gregor, lifting the lever, as Gregor tilted back in his seat, with the jerk. His large fingers instinctively landed to wrap around Olli’s tiny waist, to grab hold, and was stunned into inaction, once again. That waist, it was so small, way smaller than Sarah’s, without any contours of hips flaring. Gregor stared in deep confusion, contemplating the purpose of his own hands, at that moment.

 

Olli spit into one of his hands, reached back to stroke Gregor’s unfathomably hard cock, and aimed it at the entrance of his ass.

 

“What…." Gregor swallowed nervously, "what should I do?”

 

Olli leaned down, his nose grazing a path along Gregor’s sculpted chest up to his corded neck. “Close your eyes, stay hard, and let me ride.”

 

Olli was inexorably overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of loss, of missing the familiar pliancy of another’s muscles, just as solid as the chest before him, but, somehow yieldingly soft. The softness was missing tonight. The scent was misleading as well – almost familiar but never just right.

 

So Olli gave up trying to find the corner of Gregor’s skin that would bring him to the scent he missed so deep. He forced himself to take his own advice as he slid down on Gregor’s cock, as a moan escaped Gregor’s tightly-bitten lips, and closed his eyes. Behind his mind’s eyes, he rode as if it was his first time all over again.

 

***

 

“Holy fuck, Christian, I’m doing it. I’m seriously riding a horse!”

 

Christian’s soft trill of laughter tickled the back of Olli’s neck in the most delicious of ways, which made Olli lean back deeper into the body behind him. The familiar scent of Christian surrounded him like a protective cocoon. His cock twitched in response to the hardness he felt at his lower back. He turned his head to meet those ocean-deep blue eyes, to make sure his vision bore witness to what he felt. Like always, a tiny spark ignited, travelling all the way down to his boots-clad toes.

 

“See, I knew you could do it.” With those words, Christian put his hands on top of Olli’s, giving the reins a stronger pull, as a signal to Faust, and off they went. Flying together on the back of their black beauty, the open fields their destination, Olli’s scream of nerves and surprise turning into hiccups of unrestrained laughter, as Christian’s arm tightened around him, and they rode until the horizon swallowed them out of sight.

 

***

 

Gregor gripped the tiny waist tightly, bucking his hips forward, pounding again and again, needing to resolve the frustrated night. He mistakenly opened his eyes, and caught the sight before him. A moment of disorientation made Gregor swiftly intake a lungful of air.

 

Olli was on his lap, and Gregor found an obscure fascination with watching his hard cock disappear between the shadows of Olli’s obscenely parted hairy thighs. His pale skin was glowing with the sheen of sweat, his cock barely hard, flopping against his own thighs, sometimes smacking against Gregor’s taut stomach, his head thrown back. Olli’s eyes were shut tight, with his face lined in utter concentration. That was when Gregor came to know one of Olli’s most closely guarded secret, watching Olli’s face transform, without his knowing. Olli was fucking himself on Gregor’s cock, but he was a thousand dreams away. 

 

***

 

Christian threw a cheeky salute at Olli’s parting figure, as he watched the raven-haired boy, exhausted yet exuberant, leave the farm. Before Olli disappeared out of sight, Christian hollered out one last thought. “I can show you more if you let me, you know!”

 

Olli pumped his fist in the air, once. “Bring it. I’m not scared!” And he laughed as he ran off.

 

***

 

Gregor watched Olli as the other put his clothes back on, the mood in the car subdued. He caught sight of the drawing marking Olli's back, an angel rising out of barbed wires. It didn't really belong on Olli's body, such a mark, any mark, Gregor fleetingly thought. "Nice...tat."

 

Olli paused in straightening himself, and glanced over his shoulder, "Oh yeah, that. Thanks."

 

Gregor didn’t know what gesture would be most appropriate, after....everything, so he ran his hand through Olli’s head once, with it finally resting on the back of his neck. He gave it an affectionate squeeze, and leaned over to kiss the boy on the cheek.

 

Olli leaned back in surprise at the unexpected kiss and lifted quizzical eyebrows at Gregor.

 

In quick hopes of relieving the awkward tension, Gregor moved back and away, clearing his throat. “So…um….you won’t tell Christian right?”

 

Blue met green and held for an uncertain eternity. All that had been, that was, and that were to be, were spoken without nary a word; nothing more was left to be said.

 

“Of course.” With that, Olli exited the car, and disappeared into the night, leaving Gregor sitting in a dazed and fearful stupor.

 

The church bells chimed in four hours past midnight.

 

***

And so, as it were, the pair did part, each going their separate ways, both to anxiously await the breaking of a new dawn.

 


End file.
